Tokyo is right up there as one of my favourite cities in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited twice already and so when it was announced that the 2018 IVRPA conference was going to be held there, I was already packing!
The IVRPA is the International Virtual Reality Professionals Association and its members are a mix of professional photographers, videographers, programmers, wed developers, designers, software developers, hardware manufacturers, artists and enthusiasts who all work to produce and grow the medium of 360 in all its various forms. The IVRPA itself strives to promote the success of these VR professionals and develop and support the growth of the medium as a whole through education, network events, hardware manufacturer alliances and technical support for its members.
Needless to say anyone who’s anyone in VR is a member and we were all there in Tokyo!
Blend Media along with Facebook were proud to partner with the event, which saw 4 days of talks, workshops, panels, demonstrations and other events presented by leaders of the VR industry who shared their knowledge and experiences.
Over the four days there were some 30 presentations with a terrific list of speakers from all across our industry – from individual experts such as Blend creator and influencer Al Caudullo, NativeVR Founder Nathalie Mathe, and AirPano’s Sergey Semenov (below) to media-defining organisations including Facebook, Adobe, Kolor, Insta, Kandao and Google.
In all, there were 36 main presentations, 22 presentations in the VR Space and 14 hands-on workshops, making sure that whatever anyone’s level of expertise, we would all leave with valuable new knowledge and experience and continue to shape the future of VR.
It was significant that the IVRPA this year was held in Tokyo, not only because the Tokyo Olympics is approaching, but also because this reflects the increased adoption of immersive media in the APAC market. Already brands such as Hong Kong Airlines, AirAsia, Nescafé and Audi have run immersive 360 VR campaigns in the APAC region. Find out more about the 360 campaigns run by some of these brands here.
Our Business Development Manager, Alicja Wasilewska hosted a fantastic panel on how 360 VR strengthens the audience-brand relationship with Nathalie Mathé, Galit Ariel, Al Caudullo and Chris Murray. The panel focused on how you can maximise ROI from 360 campaigns, best practices for pitching 360 projects to the clients who have never experimented with immersive content, and the state of 360 VR in the APAC region.
Our Co-founder and COO, Chris Helm gave a productive workshop on the creation of interactive content with our 360 Stories tool. 360 Stories is a platform that enables you to easily create interactive 360 experiences that can be published across websites, ad networks and social media.
I enjoyed giving a talk on how to monetise 360 content and how you can maximise the commercial potential from creating 360 content in the lead up to Tokyo 2020. It's incredibly important for creators to start thinking now about the best possible ways they can reap the rewards of creating 360 content for this major sporting event. There are already a great number of agencies, brands and sponsors working hard on strategies to maximise coverage through the Olympics, and given that audience engagement and innovation expectation is on the rise, this is the perfect opportunity for 360 creators to show what they're made of. You can view my talk below.
If you would like to find out more about how 360 VR can help your business, email us at hello@blend.media