by Dot Cannon
By Thursday afternoon, we had engaged in a workshop while seated on a cloud, admired levitating jazz dancers and skated to 1980s music with attendees from all over the world.
And those are just three experiences from our first IMMERSIVE X Annual VR Festival, a free event which happened entirely in the metaverse, November 11th through 13th.
This fifth edition of “IMMERSIVE X: The Next Reality Festival” spanned three days and ten VR platforms. Previews promised to deliver awe, wonder and a sense of the ways in which virtual reality can change lives for the better, in multiple areas.
The festival surpassed all of the above expectations.
Some highlights
Doing justice to the entire three-day festival is the only “impossible” we’ve encountered so far.
Having stood knee-deep in a virtual ocean for a keynote, visited six cities in forty-five minutes and swum beneath the ocean in a world-hop, we’ve seen that word become, otherwise, meaningless. All physical-world boundaries were suspended.
Some of our favorite IMMERSIVE X experiences included:
“Redefining Dance Education in VR”, courtesy of the VR Dance Academy. The performance started off with a line of cardboard llamas onstage, took us through changing scenes as the dancers performed a comical burlesque number, a belly dance and an urban modern selection, and ended with them dancing in mid-air.
Death as part of life–and VR
“Mortality Murals: Ephemeral Street Art in VR”, with Dr. Tom Nickel, creator of the virtual “Death Q & A” and “Saying Goodbye” events on the ENGAGE VR platform.
The group tour began at Five Pointz, the former street-art mecca in Long Island City, New York. Then, we moved through five successive locations, examining various street-art creations exploring death and change in cities including Chicago and London.
“What do you see? What does it say to you?” Tom asked the group at each location, sparking some lively discussions. Despite the thoughtful nature of the discussions, the overall mood was both curious and playful. At one point, the group took a “fast staircase” which zoomed us to our next destination.
Mechanics behind the magic
“From Headset to Heart: Crafting Your First VR Experience,” with Alina Mikhaleva of Less Media Group.
Settings for this one changed from an artist’s concept of a starry night in a wooded area to a magical “carpet” with seating cushions on the clouds, above a mountain range!
As Alina asked questions including, “Why do you want to do this project?” and “Why VR?” at the beginning, she wrote key words in the sky.
“I’d promised myself I wouldn’t use slides,” she explained.
Her content was so absorbing that this session seemed to last for all of five minutes!
Packing a punch
The whimsical nature of the experiences we’ve described so far underscored a real sense of impact and innovation.
Sessions explored social change, the climate crisis, the arts, equity and education, among other topics. The overall spirit was one of community-building, as attendees from all over the world shared their thoughts about the future.
A panel of talented women luminaries discussed gender equity and inclusivity in The Foremothers Cafe. Africa VR Campus and Center hosted two panels, including one where Dr. Nick Were, of the University of Nairobi, explained both the ways he’s seen VR used in medical education, and his work 3D printing prosthetic limbs. The students of Africa VR Campus and Center delivered a thought-provoking and memorable poem. Ferryman Collective offered a dramatization of a dystopian future, as did vm-people and the VRium Creative Team.
And the three days flew by, too quickly.
At the final session, Organizer/Curator and vm-people Founder/CEO Thomas Zorbach shared the dates for the NEXT IMMERSIVE X Festival: November 10 – 12, 2026.
But no one need wait that long to become a part of the IMMERSIVE X community.
If you missed this year’s IMMERSIVE X festival, check out the recordings of some of their sessions on vm-people’s YouTube channel.
Also, plan to attend their free monthly event series, X-Nights, which offers meetups and discussions on emerging immersive trends and topics with attendees from all over the world. Their next X-Night is scheduled for January 15th, 2026.
We’ll see you there.