VR World Congress - Bristol

After a busy, tiring but rewarding time supporting VRWC, here are a few of my highlights from the week.

The event was on a much greater scale than last year, the main expo hall was laid out in marques covering most of Millennium Square in Bristol (approx 2 acres), with large talk rooms in @Bristol and the watershed. The range of areas covered both by the exhibitors and speakers was impressive, worlds away from the gamer and geek focus that you might expect from this kind of event.

To give you a flavour of the expo hall we had AMD rubbing shoulders with BAE Systems, and a range of scales from Microsoft to a team of local university researchers. Almost any topic was covered from medical research, to gaming, to simulated training for working in hazardous environments. For more details look at techspark who covered the event in detail, in particular there snaps of the expo hall.  https://techspark.co/5-virtual-reality-experiences-not-miss-vr-world-congress/

Sadly I didn't get to spend any time in the well attended talks, partly because they were always busy. The discussion of the points they raised continuing long after the talks were over. 

I wanted to pick out one company you may miss because they were literally part of the furniture, Nook pod.  I was fortunate to spend time talking to David O'Coimin Nook founder, in their product. While Nooks look like the funky seating areas you would find at fashionable, temporary office space. When you take your seat, the hubbub of the outside world goes quiet and you can easily have a conversation that a moment earlier you would have had to shout to make yourself heard. I'm already being pestered to get one for the office, I have to say it's going to be a struggle to to say no. The Wifire team hope to do a lot more with David and the Nook Pod.

Lastly a comment for the shows organisers, Opposable VR, they have been growing this event over the last few years and we (Wifire) are very pleased to have been able to help for the last two years. The dream team of Sarah Keates and Dan Page managed to pull this huge endeavour together and the Wifire team and I hope very much to be back working with them again for VRWC 2018.