The 8th edition of the Venice Immersive 2024 will be kicking off on August 28th, which will be featuring over 28 hours of immersive storytelling and immersive art content across over 70 different projects. This year there area a lot more immersive installations representing over a third out of the total number of on-site projects (18 out of the 52). There's eight mixed reality projects, a couple of projects featuring haptics, and one that prominently featuring AI character interactions. There are also 20 VRChat worlds in the Worlds Gallery along with 3 VRChat worlds in competition with 1 project that's using Resonite social VR platform.

I had a chance to catch up with the co-curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac again this year to get a sneak peak of the 26 projects in competition as well as 9 of the projects within the Best of Selection (note we talk about 10 Best of experiences, but it was announced just this morning that the Apple Vision Pro experience Adventure was pulled from the festival after attendees who had it booked received a message from Vivaticket saying, "we regret to inform you that the immersive experience Adventure for which you made a reservation has been cancelled" ). We also talk about how there's going to be a private think tank on September 1st looking at LBE distribution challenges and opportunities. Be sure to check out their previous report titled "Think Tank: Immediate Options to Address the Pressing Needs of Immersive Distribution."

[EDIT: September 16, 2024 - Here are the links to all of my coverage and interviews from Venice Immersive 2024]

#1416: Preview of Venice Immersive 2024 Innovations in Immersive Storytelling & Art Installations with Curators

#1417: Kicking Off Venice Immersive Converge with Translating "Riven" Classic Point-and-Click Adventure to Open World VR Puzzler

#1418: Award-Winning Animators Experiment with Sandbox Social VR "Garden Alchemy" Research Project

#1419: Creating a Four-Sided Pepper's Ghost Pyramid Illusion with "Telos I" Dance Piece

#1420: Experimental Documentary "Mammary Mountain" Captures Oral Histories of Breast Cancer Journeys

#1421: Interactive Mixed Reality Doc on ADHD "Impulse: Playing With Reality" Takes Home Immersive Achievement Prize at Venice Immersive 2024

#1422: A Simple Silence Wraps Up Craig Quintero's Trilogy Exploring Spatial Transformations & Immersive Encounters

#1423: Translating Anime IP into a VR Film with "Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom"

#1424: Quill Animation Series "Nightmara" Pushes at the Edges of Immersive Storytelling Innovations and Novelty

#1425: Immersive Art Installation "Ceci Est Mon Cœur" Uses the Poetry of Light to Explore Childhood Trauma

#1426: Champ De Bataille Uses Cinematic VR to Explore the Horrors and Emotion of World War I

#1427: Poetic Environmental Storytelling of "Fragile Home" Elegently Tells the Story of War in Ukraine with Mixed Reality

#1428: Exploring the Horrors of Forgotten Refugee's Plight in "Somewhere Unknown In Indochina"

#1429: Below Deck Innovations Fuse Theatrical Staging, Mixed Reality, & 360 Video

#1430: Immersive Expeditions Prove to be Profitable LBE Business for Emissive's Fabien Barati

#1431: Taking a Walk through Art History with "Un Soir Avec Les Impressionnistes, Paris 1874"

#1432: Combining Biodata with Open World Mushroom Adventure with "Symbiosis/\dysbiosis: Sentience"

#1433: Challenging the Authority of Museums with College Biennale Winner "The Gossips' Chronicles"

#1434: Choreographing the Collective VR Viewing Experience into a Public Art Performance with "Free UR Head"

#1435: Blending Poetic Animation with Spatial Audio Orchestration with "Earths To Come"

#1436: Transforming 2D Art into an Immersive VRChat Journey Complete with Themed Avatars with "Strangeways"

#1437: What If…? Director Dave Bushore on Translating Marvel IP into an Emmy-Award Winning Interactive Cinematic Journey