Things to do in lockdown London and beyond!
Where will you find your thrills as we emerge from lockdown in a COVID19 world?
At a VR Experience like The Tower Roller Coaster!
In light of revised cultural practices brought on by the pandemic, VR Experience Days are proving increasingly desirable to larger sections of society who; while simultaneously remaining socially distanced; are equally keen to brush off their lockdown cobwebs and explore their locale again, find things to do, enjoy/escape life and most importantly, laugh, let go and be thoroughly entertained.
People are turning to immersive entertainment such as AR, XR and VR Experiences for the types of thrill they have been dreaming of though lockdowns; cannot yet re-access in real life and that hopefully transports them to entirely new COVID free worlds.
VR Experience Days will now have a substantial role in shaping our entertainment landscape. In the simplest terms, Virtual Reality (VR) technology creates new, digital worlds around us that we can interact with to varying degrees. VR experiences can make games and rides more entertaining and immersive, transporting players to worlds entirely separate from their own. And who doesn’t want a little escapism at the moment?
Consider the experience of riding The Tower Roller Coaster for example: flying around a track, shooting sky high, dropping into stomach churning turns, through tunnels and loops, all in the heart of your own city. As exciting as that may be, now imagine that same VR Experience pod potentially transporting you through prehistoric Earth or a fantasy world, complete with dinosaurs, dragons, or anything else the VR designers can devise. A ride like that can convince the most traditional theme park pro that they’ve been transported to a place outside the frame of their existence.
Typical VR arcade spaces like the ones offered by ImmotionVR include standard format VR cubes, a VR arcade zone, educational content, an augmented reality zone, and free roam zones to cater to different groups of people at different times throughout the day: mothers and children in the morning, teenagers in the afternoon, young professionals or work events at night, and families on weekends.
ImmotionVR is a UK company that fully recognises and understands the emerging desires and preferences of their customers: continuing to plough funds into new ImmotionVR technology and features throughout 2020 despite the impact of COVID lockdowns; developing a dizzying array of innovative games and experiences at its UK and US arcades and brokering multiple partnership deals around the world with major attractions including aquariums, zoos and museums.
A clear example of ImmotionVR’s intent can be found at their US Undersea Explorer Virtual Reality Theatre that opened on August 1, 2020 in partnership with Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. This 36-seat theatre and immersive experience centre features state-of-the-art, motion platform VR technology transporting guests to the ocean’s depths. In addition to the 2 VR experiences, Shark Dive and Swimming with Humpbacks, the experience centre features a full interactive pre-show including Shark Cage Selfie Snap, Humpbacks Revealed, Songs of the Sea and Shark Tracker where guests track the movement of sharks around the world in real time.
“With this installation, we’ve built on our VR experiences and expanded our offering to be a fully-realized immersive experience centre,
We think this will be a blue-print for our business as we partner with other aquariums, zoos, museums and other attractions.”
Martin Higginson, Chief Executive ImmotionVR
Another great example of Immotion’s partnership work was the exhibition “Yorkshire’s Jurassic World“, at York Museum, UK where octogenarian Blue Planet broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, visited and fed a VR dinosaur – an installation powered again by highly immersive content from ImmotionVR.
“Sharing my passion for the natural world is something which I have done for many years.
This has been through different technologies, from the days of black-and-white TV to colour, HD, 3D, 4K and now virtual reality.”
Sir David Attenborough, National Treasure
Virtual Reality
In the simplest terms, Virtual Reality (VR) technology creates a new, digitally immersive world that you can interact with to varying degrees. VR can make games and rides more entertaining, transporting roller coaster riders to a world entirely separate from their own. And if the experience ever becomes stale, VR technology allows operators to revitalize the ride and create brand-new VR experiences through a software update instead of an infrastructure overhaul.
Augmented Reality
Unlike VR, which creates an entirely new world, Augmented Reality (AR) technology overlays digital elements on top of the real world. As the name suggests, AR takes the existing physical environment and augments it with digital assets, creating an interactive, extraordinary experience that’s grounded in the world we know. Many roller coaster rides already incorporate AR elements. At the rate AR technology is advancing, it won’t be long before it’s nearly impossible to distinguish what is real and what is imagineered.
Find your thrills at a VR Experience Day.
While accepting the effect of COVID19 lockdowns, Immotion maintains their trading has “continued to be encouraging” across sites that have operated when restrictions have allowed.
The UK firm notes that it will have all UK and US ImmotionVR sites and 16 UK partner sites operating all its attractions again by the end of November.
