VR makes its way to water parks
In a licensed agreement, VR Coaster, HolodeckVR, and WhiteWater have signed a deal to bring virtual reality to water slides and water park attractions. The partnership is aimed at promoting collaboration between the industry stalwarts to innovate and set new standards of quality in the new field of VR-based water slides.
“I see immense potential in VR technology to provide a brand-new canvas for water slides and park attractions,” says Geoff Chutter, CEO of WhiteWater. “More than just bridging the gap between the physical and virtual, VR can help the industry unravel a whole new level of technological immersion. For WhiteWater, this is an extremely exciting opportunity to transform its offerings into their new avatars. The best part of the technology is its flexibility to be adopted to any product and give it a new lease of life.”
With VR Coaster’s and HolodeckVR’s proprietary and patented VR technology and know-how, combined with WhiteWater’s years of experience in creating iconic and world-class park attractions, the agreement can provide new opportunities to waterparks around the world to take their park experience to the next level. Combining virtual reality with the forces and sensations of a real ride or slide experience creates the most immersive kind of media based attractions. VR Coaster has already teamed up with HolodeckVR to integrate their RF based tracking system into their VR experiences. However, for water slides, this technology will now open up a whole new level of quality and precision.
Providing infinite narrative possibilities with seamless integration, VR Coaster’s VR content can extend any ride experience. Not only with compelling media and storytelling, but also by interaction, gaming or with guests choosing between different paths in the ride journey.
“At VR Coaster, we focus on combining VR with real-life experiences,” adds Thomas Wagner, Managing Partner of VR Coaster GmbH & Co. KG. “Leading the market with dry rides equipped all over the world, we took the next step in 2018 when we entered the water park field with our SwimVR underwater setup and the Diving Theatre. The new partnership with WhiteWater will now help us extend our offerings towards dynamic waterslide experiences. We are very excited about the opportunities this will bring and look forward to working with WhiteWater as a valued partner to deliver world class VR-based waterslides and rides.”
“Our team at Holodeck VR,” says Jonathan Nowak Delgado, Co-founder and Managing Director of Holodeck VR GmbH, “is building full steam a virtual reality content platform for ground-breaking new ways of immersive human interactions. Holodeck VR technology can reliably track more several dozens of objects at a time, from small areas up to stadium-sized spaces, and requires only a fraction of the usual tracking hardware, thus making Holodeck VR the most cost-effective solution for high-throughput VR attractions. We started with free roam experiences in shopping malls and family entertainment centers, but now see an up-pick in demand for VR on even more immersive use cases like Roam & Ride (seamless free-roam combination with VR on roller-coaster) and now VR on water attractions. Our strategy to partner with the best-in-class collaboration partners like VR Coaster & White Waters West has been very fruitful so far and we look forward to keep pushing jointly the limits of creativity and immersion – always having the guest satisfaction and safety as the guiding priority.”
