Virtual Reality Day ’18 – Edmonton, Alberta

Celebrate global Virtual Reality Day by attending this local event near you. Learn and experience from different VR/AR demonstrations. Become educated about virtual and augmented reality. Have your first virtual reality experience. Ask questions. Meet the local VR/AR community.

Final location, time and exhibitors/demonstrations will be posted here as we get closer to the event.

Register here today on Eventbrite, and receive notices automatically for the event.

Learn More at VirtualRealityDay.org

The 2nd Annual Global Virtual Reality Day will take place Saturday, November 17th, 2018.

Virtual Reality Day is a series of VR/AR events organized worldwide to help virtual and augmented reality become more mainstream. Any individual, company or organization can host a free public VR/AR event and become part of the Virtual Reality Day phenomenon. This is a completely voluntary and grassroots effort. It’s about bringing the energy and interests of the greater community together, and focusing that energy for the benefit of everyone on one special day.

How does it work?

You organize your local VR/AR event at any location of your choice. This could be a small scale event at a local coffee shop, or a bigger event at a public school or corporate partner in your area. As long as the goal of your event is to help people get exposed to VR/AR and it’s free to attend, the size, location and venue is up to you.

Need help finding a venue?

Reach out to your local VR/AR Meetup group, or other startups in the area, and work together to find a venue.

Partner with your local coffee shop, and setup your VR rig there for the day.

You could consider reaching out to your local Microsoft or Apple Store, Best Buy, etc., and organizing a special educational event with them for that day. Why wouldn’t they want some local help and support to drive extra foot traffic and interest that day?

Still struggling? Email us, and we’ll try to connect you with other like-minded people in your area.

How are we going to get the word out?

1) We’ll be putting out multiple press releases promoting Virtual Reality Day leading up to the event starting in early September, informing the public to make plans to attend an event near them.

2) For every event that has been scheduled by Monday, November 12th, we’ll be reaching out to the local media in your city that week to cover the event.

3) During the week before, we will also reach out to the public school systems where events are taking place, informing them to ask teachers to make announcements in their classrooms. We will also inform the local surrounding parent/teacher associations (PTAs).

4) We’ll be running a large social media campaign for the entire week leading up to November 17th.

5) We’ll be scheduling live video check-in remotes with all the events on that day to have them share what they’re doing locally with the larger global internet community.

Why are we doing this?

It’s hard to say at the moment whether 2018 is a critical year or not for the VR/AR industry. We do know that for any company, startup or established, driving interest, and generating revenue is always of paramount importance.

Further, AR/VR is not mainstream yet. It’s getting closer. But, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone that has had a high-end VR experience with the Microsoft HoloLens, the Oculus Rift, or the HTC Vive.

We want to help to change that. And so, we decided to put a stake in the ground and designate Saturday, November 17th, 2018 as the second annual global Virtual Reality Day.

We chose this day because it’s the last Saturday before Black Friday, and the start of the holiday shopping season. It’s also a day when most students, grade, high school and college are still in school before their Thanksgiving break. Also, by having it on the weekend, it allows parents to bring their children.

We’d like to encourage individuals and groups to organize a free public VR event on this day on any topic you like. It could be introducing VR for the first time to people, or focused on a vertical topic of your choice, with the goal to educate and inform.

The Washington, DC event even made the 11pm evening news last year: