The Void

The second stop planned for today was going to be to The Void.

Not known to anyone in 2015, The Void is a company/facility that is working to bring Virtual Reality to the public in a way not seen before. Typically VR relies on nothing more than donning a headset and acting in a virtual space with no physical constraints. There's nothing to stop you walking in the real world beyond the perceived constraints of the virtual.

What the Void are doing is looking to make the immersion stronger by combining VR with a physical space with other sensory effects. Walk close to a burning torch and you'd expect to feel the heat. Get shot by a bad guy and you'd expect to feel it hit you (but obviously not hurting).

The first facility they have is in Pleasent Grove south of Salt Lake and in pulling the trip together I was in contact conversation with them as to dropping by to take part in the beta-testing of the VR experience that they've made available there.

Unfortunately for us but good news for them, in the months leading up to the trip they had been commissioned by Tussauds in New York to install a Ghostbusters VR experience, the first of its kind and great publicity for them. With the team being in the other side of the country, it meant that the facility was closed for us.

This video nicely sums up the experience they have there.

I'm a huge van of VR and wrote a couple of papers on it when it first became popular and I was at Uni. At the time the tech wasn't up to where it needed to be, but it's there now and soon we'll have our own VR systems at home. So I'm keen to see what The Void guys can do.

I guess I'll just have to get myself to New York to see what this Ghostbusters attraction holds up :)

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