Virtual reality group hails success of partnership model

Immotion Group, the Salford-based immersive ‘Out of Home’ entertainment group, has announced further development and roll-out of its partnership model in an update today.

The virtual reality company is now focused on the roll-out of its partnership model into high footfall locations.

It said trading in the current partner sites has been very encouraging over the Summer months, with aquariums continuing to perform particularly strongly and overall there remains considerable interest from potential new partners as well as further developments with current partners.

Immotion’s technology is used in entertainment centres in North America and the Middle East, as well as UK locations including the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester.

Following early success at The 02, Immotion has agreed to extend the offering to include five additional headsets, taking the total number of headsets deployed to 17.

The new addition will feature a five-person car racing set-up where users will be able to compete ‘head to head’ in the award-winning ‘Project Cars 2’ game.

Users will be able to choose from more than 180 different cars, on 60 different tracks.

This addition will see The O2 offering a four-person Roller-Coaster VR experience, a four-person Underwater Explorer range of experiences, the four-person ‘free-roaming’ ‘Raw Data’ futuristic shooting experience, plus this latest addition, a five-person car racing challenge.

The O2 is the world’s most popular music and entertainment venue, receiving more than nine million visitors a year.

Immotion has also agreed to extend its relationship with leading family entertainment centre operator, Austin’s Park in Texas.

The 22-acre family entertainment centre has agreed to trial Immotion’s four-person ‘Raw Data’ arena, along with its four-person Thrill Coaster set-up. On the assumption of a successful trial the company will begin offering this solution to the wider family entertainment centre market.

Today (September 10) the company launched its first bespoke ‘Tower Coaster’ VR experience at Blackpool Tower, the Merlin-owned entertainment centre.

The new experience will feature a thrilling roller coaster ride “falling” more than 400 feet from above the Blackpool skyline. This is the first in a range of tailored ‘Tower Coaster’ city experiences which can be themed around any cityscape.

In addition to Blackpool Tower, the company has agreed further installs into the Merlin estate.

The first at Legoland Windsor, this being a four-person ‘The Great Lego Race’ VR experience, and the second at London’s largest aquarium, the ‘London SeaLife Aquarium’ centre on the famous Southbank.

This landmark site boasts more than on million visitors per annum. The site will be installed this month and will see the official launch of the Immotion’s latest ‘Underwater Explorer’ experience, ‘Shark Dive’ which gives customers the opportunity to get up close and personal with Tiger and Hammerhead Sharks in a highly immersive underwater experience.

The company will deliver a full update on trading and prospects along with its interim results which are expected to be released on September 25.

Rod Findley, Immotion Group commercial director, said: “Demand for our entertainment and edutainment VR offerings continues to gain momentum. Our unique partnership approach allows facilities to make a pain-free decision to enter the Immersive VR space.”

Martin Higginson, Immotion Group chief executive, added: “Earlier this year we took the bold decision to focus all our efforts on building our partner base and scaling our unique partnership model.

“Rod and his team have done an amazing job adding more quality partners to our fast-growing network. On the back of this success we have decided to further scale his partnership team and we look forward to reporting more partnership successes in the coming weeks.”