I Was Wrong

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Sometimes I get it wrong. Doesn’t happen often when it comes to LBEXR, but when I do, I own it. And I missed it with Verse Immersive from Enklu.

Verse Immersive calls itself the world’s first Holographic Theater. I call it an augmented-reality, multiplayer, free-roam VR experience. Their label is way better.

Augmented reality wearables let people see the real world as it is, with an interactive digital, or holographic, layer. With Verse Immersive, there are no avatars; users see each other as they are. There’s no sense of isolation that exists in many VR experiences. There’s also no chance of motion sickness because there’s no player tracking; you are just in the real world.

When I first evaluated Verse Immersive, I was hung up on the tech. It has a smaller field of view than VR headsets, and the graphics aren’t as good. I’ve also repeatedly said that users don’t care that much about graphics. What they care about is experience.

And based on the performance data, Verse Immersive delivers where it counts. Here’s what I didn’t consider in the beginning.

1. A lot of people don’t want to do VR. They either had a bad experience or know someone who did. AR has a real cool factor, like VR did in 2016. And that’s translating to ticket sales.

2. Their interactive storytelling experiences appeal to a much bigger audience. An adventure park for kids just expanded to its 6th Verse Immersive installation, and across all locations, the data shows 25-44-year-olds being the most engaged from a marketing standpoint

3. People are booking online in advance. For FECs, this is gold. Because until they cross your threshold, customers are likely to be distracted by something else. But when they put their money down up front, they’re coming.

4. Unlike most VR experiences, it’s Instagrammable. You can take your phone out of your pocket and snap a photo while wearing the headset. And people do. All the time.

Beyond those four factors above, two new developments helped turned me bullish.

1. They just released their first IP-based experience this past Halloween - “Trick R Treat” from Legendary Entertainment, one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. I am sure there’s more coming.

2. They’ve just switched from Microsoft HoloLens to the hot, new Snap Spectacles. Snap owns Snapchat, and its Spectacles developer kit offers easy integration to its social media network. I tried their latest dev kit at AWE, and it was accurate, easy to use, and durable.

3. They have an in-house digital marketing team that handles all online social marketing for operators. Most amusement operators aren’t very good at digital conversion strategies (like getting buyers to buy online in advance). It’s critical to success today.

Verse Immersive is now in over 30 locations and expanding rapidly. AR tech is new and just entering the hype cycle. Getting in now gives you tens of thousands of dollars worth of free influencer and press publicity when you open.

They’ve come a long way since my first Enklu experience in 2018 in San Francisco. It’s taken them 7 or 8 years to get here, and it’s evident they’ve been working hard to build a platform that works for operators, locations, and guests.

Make sure to try it out at IAAPA - booth 9229 in the North Concourse. My advice? Book a demo slot in advance at this link to avoid the long queues.