Pete Carkeek and Scott Robinson from VRX Immersive Enterprise tell us about the importance of the event and what they hope attendees took away from it.This article is a transcript from our interview.
3E: So tell us a bit about you guys and what your goal is here.
PC: My name is Pete Carkeek, I’m the MD of VR Intelligence and Lead Organizer of the VRX conference series.
SR: I’m Scott [Robinson], I work for VRX, too, I’m the Commercial Lead. My main roll is to connect solution providers in the VR/AR space with end-user brands.
PC: This event was put together to really cater for the business applications for VR and AR. So the first VRX ran back in November 2015 in San Francisco. We’ve run out of annually out there, and then we run in Europe as well on an annual basis. This is our first east coast event, but the first of many, I’m sure.
3E: What prompted you to establish a VR/AR conference specifically for enterprise?
PC: We saw how disruptive the technology was going to be, primarily initially in the consumer gaming and entertainment space, but since then, it’s become very clear that it’s going to be disruptive for enterprise, entertainment and everything. Increasingly over the past couple years, the enterprise space, everything from aero space through automotive through retail through travel and tourism, there’s huge disruption in all these industries and so we thought the time was right to bring something to Boston, and focus specifically on those business applications for VR and AR.
I think the short term trend is showing real gains in the enterprise space, and we are actually starting to see there are real life business cases for this stuff that are proven. Businesses are making significant cost savings and driving significant revenue, and I think we showcase quite a lot of those on stage and in the expo hall.
3E: What are you hoping that businesses and attendees leave this conference with?
PC: So hopefully businesses are going away from this realizing that there is a real opportunity for continued investment in this space, and they’re going to make some return back. We spend a lot of time speaking to all sorts of companies, going to a variety of events, but really with VRX, it’s about the quality of its attendees. We really want you to come here, to make partnerships and connections that will last for the rest of your business time really. Our target market is the larger enterprises, so we’ve had people from GM, Macy’s, Lockheed Martin, all in attendance, all speaking on stage here today, and then it’s the whole ecosystem that serves into that. What I hope they’ve learned is lessons from peers, and lessons from some of the people providing content solutions. There’s a real lack of certain content out there. Those who are providing content and solution packages have a real opportunity to sell into business right now, and hopefully this has given the businesses an opportunity to see what’s out there, and the solution providers and content providers an opportunity to show what they got. It’s a really good collection of individuals – there’s no substitute for physical connection. There is no substitute for that real kind of face time, sharing a drink, sharing a chat with someone. We’re not quite there yet in the virtual world, we may be someday, but for the time being, it’s all about the physical conference experience.
3E: That’s great to hear! So what are the details of the conference in San Fran
PC: I talked a little earlier about VRX starting back in November 2015 in San Francisco. We’ve run December ever since, we run the first weeks, so this year’s event takes place December 6th, 7th. The theme of the event this year is, “What’s real, what’s hype, what’s the future?” It’s a real kind of reality check on the VR, AR industry. It should be a real good couple of days. So I encourage anyone watching this to look it up. Go to VRinteligence.com/VRX and you’ll find information all about it.
