VR theme parks for Australia

Virtual reality theme parks are looming as mass entertainment in the 21st century.

The Void virtual reality theme park

Virtual reality theme parks, where you wear a headset to make sense of an otherwise empty environment, are looming as mass entertainment in the 21st century.

Australia already has Zero ­Latency, a 400sq m warehouse in Melbourne, where patrons equipped with VR headsets and guns fight off hordes of zombies in a virtual apocalyptic world.

Now a US entrepreneur has affirmed his plan to bring his virtual reality theme park concept to Australia as part of an ambitious plan to roll out 1000 centres globally over the next eight years, with the help of local partners.

Entrepreneur and chief executive Ken Bretschneider is one of the three founders of The Void. A fine artist and oil painter, who also dabbled in 3D animation and digital effects work, Mr Bretschneider — along with James Jensen and Curtis Hickman — initially worked on a project called Evermore, an immersive location-based regional theme park, before settling on The Void.

An artists's impression of the first Void being built in Utah as supplied by The Void.

He was also the founder and chief executive of DigiCert, a major provider of digital security certificates that he sold in 2012.

Mr Bretschneider describes The Void as a massive cinema centre, but with rooms or virtual stages that patrons hire for an experience that combines the real world with virtual reality — a mixed reality.

Each virtual stage would be about 330sq m, with physical features such as walls and sections with the virtual world mapped over the top. The Australian version would be “the same as we’re going to build everywhere,” he told The Australian.

“You can think of it almost like an IMAX movie theatre. It’s a relatively small amount of space but when you go into the virtual world it seems unlimited, a massive space and you’d book it almost like you’d book a movie,” he said.

A virtual reality design is superimposed over real space to create a mixed reality experience.

“Instead of sitting in a seat and watching a movie, in our case you’d put on a rig — a vest, gloves and headset, which would allow you to enter a virtual world. You’d freely roam around it just like you would in real life.

People would see each other as avatars in the virtual world. We want to hit all of the senses, we want it to be a full sensory experience that takes you into another world.”

Virtual worlds could be anything, a Harry Potter-type world, a Jurassic world, a trip back in time to when the Great Wall of China was built, or an alien planet.

“What we’ve been building over the past few years is technology that will enable that to happen such as advanced tracking systems, an advanced visual display, haptic feedback devices like vests, and a mobile computing system that can pump out amazing graphics, Mr Bretschneider said.

The Void will deliver a variety of out-of-world mixed reality experiences.

“All of those combined is what we needed from a technology perspective to make it happen. It’s all set in what we call a virtual stage.”

The Void has developed its own “Rapture family of hardware”, including a “Rapture” VR headset for the experience with a wide field of view. With the hardware operational for the past two years, rollout time is near. The first Void is slated to open in Utah in October-November as an eight-stage centre just under 8000sq m. This month the company said it would open a Void in China.

Mr Bretschneider said the Void was working with partners to make the concept available globally. In Australia, those partners were developers. “We’re negotiating with 21 theme park groups worldwide,” he said. “We have a huge interest in Asia, and a substantial partnership forming in China, Korea and Singapore.”

So how long would an Australian Void take to build? Mr Bretschneider cited a general time frame of the first wave of centres within five years. “Our goal over the next five years is to build 300 to 500 centres worldwide and within about seven to eight years to be as many as 1000 centres worldwide,” he said.

He added that The Void had raised a “considerable amount” of capital through strategic private equity, well over $US10 million ($14m) in seed capital.

Users try out a prototype of The Void wearing the company’s Rapture VR headsets.