LEXRA Podcast

Bob sits down with Vasily Petrenko, CEO of Another World, the free-roam VR arcade network that has grown to roughly 400 signed partners in 50 countries, with more than 300 locations open and another hundred in build-out. Bob has now visited three of them, in Koh Samui and Kuala Lumpur, and every owner he met was opening more. Bob trusts that kind of leading indicator over any industry research report, so he invited Vasily on to find out what is driving it.

Vasily started as a bioengineer in a Siberian science town. In 2014 he and his friends opened their city's first escape room, made their money back in two months, built a comedy escape room everyone said would fail (it became the top room in the city), and turned their workshop into an escape room supply business. In 2018 a two-minute free-roam VR demo sold two contracts before the game even existed. That product became The Deep, merged with the Another World brand in 2020, and the network took off.

Then the conversation gets tactical about what head office does for operators. A sales training program lifted call-to-booking conversion from under 20 percent to 45 to 60 percent. The company sets up Google and Facebook campaigns for partners, and a social media team turns their raw phone footage into ready-to-post reels every week. Network-wide partner revenue grew around 49 percent in a year, with individual locations ranging from $10,000 to $40,000 plus per month. And one Polish partner cracked corporate sales with a subscription: local companies pay around $1,000 a month to send ten employees at a time into off-peak weekday slots, so ten contracts cover the bills before the weekend rush even starts.

Bob pushes on the audience quadrants VR arcades still miss: date nights, and the daytime cultural crowd buying tickets to Horizons of Khufu and Titanic. The Gate in Paris sold 2,000 Titanic tickets a month on top of an unchanged gaming business, and that case frames the royalty and exclusivity negotiation Vasily is already having with Eclipso and Hololabs, plus his early conversations with Disney and Warner Brothers about bringing major IP into the network.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Intro: how Bob found Another World in Koh Samui and Kuala Lumpur
• 01:55 Leading indicators: three venues visited, every owner expanding
• 03:40 Origin story: a bioengineer opens Siberia's first escape rooms
• 04:55 The comedy escape room everyone said would fail
• 06:25 From motion-sick demos to The Deep's first free-roam game
• 09:15 Why VR still hasn't taken over the escape room industry
• 12:15 "VR is just an instrument": selling a good time, not a technology
• 13:25 Birthday parties: solve the parent's problem and the sale is done
• 15:00 Corporate events: the North York three-hour format
• 17:05 Merging The Deep with Another World
• 19:20 400 signed partners in 50 countries, and the cost of growing that fast
• 21:00 The scientific method applied to arcade operations
• 22:50 Sales scripts, role-play coaching, and weekly reels from head office
• 25:00 Partner economics: $10,000 to $40,000 plus per month
• 28:30 The sales training that tripled booking conversion
• 30:10 The four-quadrant audience model
• 33:55 PvP done right: Schmuter and Kernel
• 35:50 Tournament strategy: a national championship from 20 locations
• 38:10 Events mix and the Polish partner's corporate subscription unlock
• 42:40 Your game guides are the product
• 43:05 AI for corporate sales outreach
• 48:15 The silver quadrant: cultural experiences and third-party content
• 50:00 The Gate in Paris: 2,000 Titanic tickets a month
• 51:35 Royalties, exclusivity, and the case for scale
• 55:20 Disney, Warner Brothers, and the wrap-up

Guest:

Vasily Petrenko, CEO and co-founder, Another World: https://another-world.com
Find Vasily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasily-petrenko/

Another World is a LEXRA member. If you're building in location-based XR, join the leading companies collaborating at https://lexra.org

Part 2 of the Hololabs deep dive gets tactical. Brett Gaylor (Hololabs) and the team at One Net Marketing walk operators step-by-step through the launch playbook for Abyss: Vault's "Rebellion First Wave" — a coordinated worldwide premiere weekend — and hand over the entire kit: a four-week distribution plan, ready-made social carousels and video ads editable in Canva, Facebook event templates, three-email FOMO sequences, media releases, marquee posters with film-style credit blocks, and photo-moment backdrops.

The through-line: turn "any old day at the arcade" into an event. Nicole's purple-carpet lesson from the documentary world — event-ize the release, give guests a shareable moment, and they become your marketing force. Bob adds the psychology (money → time → energy → identity: dress-up and squad names anchor the memory) and closes with a practical explainer on Meta's new GEM and Andromeda ad algorithms — why you should stop micromanaging audiences, optimize for conversion, and feed the machine lots of creative.

Note: since this session was recorded, the LEXRA Summit announced at the end has moved — it's now October 5–6 at Gilley's Dallas. Details at summit.lexra.org.

Brianne Dromey

What happens when a theme park design studio builds a VR arcade game? Bob Cooney hosts the team from Hololabs — the Victoria, BC studio behind gameplay and AR for Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge at Universal Studios — as they walk through how they built and launched Abyss: Vault, a 30-minute free-roam VR adventure for 2–6 players where teamwork is survival.

Recorded live with operators ahead of the game's worldwide premiere weekend, this session is a masterclass in bringing theme park thinking to the VR arcade: designing for emotion instead of competition, playtesting with 70+ strangers in a converted mall shop, and rolling out a game the way an indie film gets a premiere — squads, red carpets, trophies, and a complete marketing kit for operators.

Bob's through-line for operators: arcade owners market concept ("we have VR") when they should market content — because post-pandemic, people show up for the event, not the venue.

Chapters

00:00 Intro: the Hololabs team, mid-launch

00:45 Meet Hololabs — creative technologists, artists, and filmmakers in Victoria, BC

02:00 Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge — what they built, and how the ride fakes speed

09:31 Co-location and shared moments: multiplayer lessons from the ride

12:06 What theme parks actually teach: onboarding, staff workflows, 100% reliability

14:16 "If you're for everyone, you're for no one" — the four-quadrant audience model

15:29 The oversaturated arcade catalog — and the vicious cycle it creates

17:40 Designing for collaboration: the RGB flashlight mechanic

19:14 Bob on replayability: memory anchors emotion, emotion drives replay

22:15 Playtesting in a mall shop: 70+ public testers, the grandma, the bus driver

26:35 Timeline: January 2025 ideation to launch — over a year

30:42 Abyss: Vault — the story, the world, the trailer

33:40 Brett's indie-film playbook: RiP! A Remix Manifesto and building your own exhibitor network

35:28 Nicole's purple carpet: how Amplify Her turned 8 screenings into a superfan engine

37:05 Bob: market content, not concept

39:04 The worldwide premiere weekend: squads, the scavenger competition, dress in red/green/blue

43:07 The operator toolkit: Canva kit, marquee posters, the Mission Briefing Board

46:59 The flywheel: shareable moments become your marketing force

49:32 Bob's market check: LBE down 10–30% — except the operators who kept advertising

53:27 Beta, platforms (Spawn Point, VEX), and €3-per-player economics

56:15 Corporate events, direct licensing, and what's next

60:29 Wrap

Featuring

• Brett Gaylor — Hololabs
• Mike Wozneiwski— Hololabs
• Benji Agcal— Hololabs
• Nicole Sorochan— Hololabs

Links

• Hololabs' Abyss: Vault — hololabs.org/abyss
• LEXRA — tools, best practices, and a network of LBE operators — lexra.org

Immersive Cinema Deep Dive: Cosm, The Sphere, and 5,000 Empty Movie Theaters — with Lance Loesberg and Jeremy Dalton

Bob sits down with two people who have been building immersive entertainment since the earliest days: Lance Loesberg, who ran Virtuality's North American business in the 1990s and went on to pioneer 360° video production at BigLook360, and Jeremy Dalton, who built and led PwC's first dedicated immersive technology team before launching XRHQ.

The three dig into the new wave of immersive cinema — Cosm's half-dome reimagining of The Matrix, The Sphere's AI-expanded Wizard of Oz, and ABBA Voyage's $175 million virtual concert — and ask the hard business questions: what did the content cost, who is actually making money, and can any of it scale?

Then Bob connects the dots to a stat that should have every cinema owner's attention: roughly 40% of opening-weekend box office for tentpole films now comes from about 2% of screens — the IMAX ones — while thousands of underused auditoriums sit idle. With free-roam VR experiences like Horizons of Khufu generating nearly $30 million in ticket sales on less than $100K of deployable hardware, the empty movie theater might be immersive entertainment's biggest real-estate opportunity.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Intro: two guests, 30 years of immersive history
• 00:32 Lance's journey: Virtuality pods, laser tag arcades, and the GM 360° VR test drive
• 04:49 Jeremy's journey: building PwC's immersive team, deploying headsets in 50+ countries, launching XRHQ
• 07:51 Why now: gaming's shakeout and the shift to premium immersive formats
• 08:47 Cosm explained: "a planetarium on steroids" — and how The Matrix was adapted
• 14:07 Ticket pricing, F&B, and whether an $80M venue pencils
• 17:30 ABBA Voyage: $175M in content costs and what it proved
• 20:31 The Sphere: "the most immersive experience outside a headset," Postcard from Earth, and the Wizard of Oz AI controversy
• 23:05 IMAX vs. the death spiral: 40% of opening box office on 2% of screens
• 26:06 Studios vs. cinema owners: the broken distribution window
• 31:57 Shooting for VR: Doug Liman's Asteroid and why headset filmmaking is its own craft
• 34:27 Horizons of Khufu economics: ~$30M in tickets on under $100K of CapEx — and why free-roam VR fits inside a theater
• 38:20 Are headsets scalable? Adoption, Gen Alpha, and the niche-vs-mainstream question
• 43:50 Closing question: the one classic movie each would turn into a free-roam VR experience
• 47:18 Bonus: is location-based VR actually making money? Sandbox economics, Zero Latency, Eclipso

Guests:

• Lance Loesberg — BigLook360, VR content studio and 360° video pioneer: https://www.biglook360.com/
• Jeremy Dalton — founder, XRHQ; former head of PwC's immersive technologies team: https://xrhq.com/

Bob's Sandbox economics deep dive: https://bobcooney.com/sandbox-vr-franchise-economics/

Every empty VR slot is a plane leaving the gate with a seat unsold. That mindset built Funlab into 50 venues across Australia and New Zealand. Blaise Witnish, the company's Chief Growth and Innovation Officer and acting US CEO, is now moving to Los Angeles to bring the playbook to America.

Bob Cooney sits down with Blaise for a straight operator masterclass. Funlab runs eight brands, over 3,000 staff, and three Zero Latency free-roam sites, all on one principle: VR is a utilization game. She lays out the airline model for pricing, the "peak the peaks and pack the gaps" mantra, and why a five-minute free taster converts at 95 percent.

Then the practical stuff. Her "service is selling" philosophy and how she runs it across 3,000 staff. Why she hires people who love to serve and bring real energy. How STEM school groups turn into weekly baseline revenue. And why a simple viewing window into the VR arena doubles your cross-sell.

If you run a venue, one location or fifty, this is for you.

Watch the recording → https://thevrcollective.com/peak-the-peaks-pack-the-gaps-funlabs-vr-utilization-playbook/

The VR Collective → https://thevrcollective.com/
LEXRA → https://www.lexra.org/home

Chapters

0:00 — Intro: where in the world is Bob, and Blaise's move to LA
2:13 — How Funlab found Zero Latency
4:15 — Reading trade areas with Placer.ai
7:19 — Why Funlab chose Zero Latency
9:06 — Eight brands and the precinct model
10:42 — Three Zero Latency sites, distinct catchments
11:32 — Cross-sell and the viewing window
13:05 — Tasters: five minutes free, 95% conversion
15:32 — Training 3,000 staff on the utilization game
17:40 — Bring VR to the front: warpaint and curiosity
20:28 — Service is selling
22:13 — Hiring people who love to serve
26:01 — Zero Latency vs laser tag
29:45 — How mainstream VR really is
31:10 — Pricing: premium peak, accessible off-peak
33:45 — Filling gaps with geo-targeted ads
34:50 — STEM school groups as weekly baseline revenue
37:16 — How VR changed the attraction mix
38:52 — Coming to America: Hijinx Hotel and brand strategy
41:20 — Inside Hijinx Hotel
42:44 — The VR content the industry needs next
44:45 — Who drives LBE spending now
46:01 — Peak the peaks, pack the gaps

Podcast Intro

In 2017, IMAX tried to bring virtual reality to theaters, and failed. But the story didn’t end there.

In this episode, Bob Cooney explores what went wrong with IMAX VR, why its brand extension never made sense, and how a new generation of large-scale, story-driven VR experiences is succeeding where IMAX stumbled. From Horizon of Khufu and Titanic to the upcoming Black Mirror immersive experience, Bob connects the dots between IMAX’s documentary roots and today’s free-roam VR storytelling boom.

He also breaks down the numbers, the business models, and the opportunity for movie theaters sitting on underperforming auditoriums to transform them into profitable immersive venues.

Show Notes (for podcast platforms)

Topics Covered:

• How IMAX VR began and why it failed to align with IMAX’s core storytelling brand.

• The historical evolution of IMAX: from museum documentaries to blockbuster format.

• Why early VR gaming arcades couldn’t make money (low throughput, high labor, poor fit).

• The rise of “large-scale free-roam storytelling VR” , and why it works.

• Case studies:

  • Horizon of Khufu (Excurio) - the $25M immersive expedition that proved the model.

  • Univrse + Banijay’s upcoming Black Mirror VR - mainstream storytelling in LBE.

  • Wevr, Small Creative, and others bridging art, education, and entertainment.

• How 2,500 sq ft theaters can host 50+ guests profitably.

• The movie theater opportunity: converting 5,000 underperforming auditoriums into VR experiences.

• Real-world examples:

  • Sphere’s $15M pre-sales for Wizard of Oz.

  • Cosm’s immersive screenings of The Matrix and Willy Wonka.

  • IMAX generating 20% of opening-weekend box office on just 1% of global screens.

• Why collaboration among VR studios is essential, and how LEXRA aims to unite them.

Key Takeaway:
The future of immersive entertainment lies between cinema and gaming. Story-driven, free-roam VR - what Bob calls “walk-through theaters” - can do for this decade what IMAX did for the 2000s: redefine how audiences experience stories.

Connect & Continue the Conversation:

• Join the discussion at ⁠LEXRA⁠

In this episode, Bob Cooney dives into NRG’s latest report, Gen Alpha Saves the Box Office, and what it reveals about the future of entertainment. Gen Alpha - the generation shaped by the pandemic - is craving real connection, immersive group experiences, and shared cultural events.

Bob breaks down 13 key insights from the study and connects them to opportunities for VR operators, immersive creators, and theater owners. From fandom-driven events to cross-generational storytelling and the rise of walk-through theaters, this episode explores how we can meet Gen Alpha’s demand for experiences that are interactive, immersive, and social.

Show Notes

Topics Covered:

• Why Gen Alpha craves connection after growing up isolated during the pandemic.

• The “third place” concept. How games and social VR worlds like Gorilla Tag have become Gen Alpha’s hangouts.

• The comeback of in-person group activities and local social experiences.

• How the new generation’s preferred movie length challenges the myth of short attention spans.

• Why shared, two-hour experiences feel worth the friction of getting out of the house.

• The power of fandom and opening weekends. Why young audiences crave cultural events, not just movies.

• The opportunity for VR arcades to create their own launch moments for new titles.

• Multi-sensory engagement—sound, scent, and motion as tools for emotional impact.

• “Cross-Gen Connectors”: content that bridges generations, like Mario Bros., Spider-Man, and the upcoming Terminator VR game from Hero Zone.

• How 54% of Gen Alpha want VR or 3D experiences in theaters, and 41% want hybrid game-movie experiences.

• The rise of walk-through theaters—VR experiences that blend storytelling and light interactivity.

• The big takeaway: the future of entertainment is interactive, immersive, and social—and it’s up to operators to turn VR into culturally relevant shared events.

Referenced Report:👉 Gen Alpha Saves the Box Office

Connect & Continue the Conversation:

• Join the discussion at LEXRA

Summary:
In this special session, Bob Cooney gathers operators, marketers, and innovators to reflect on the challenges facing the location-based VR and immersive entertainment industry, and how to solve them together. Drawing on the Two Loops Model of Change, Bob frames the conversation around moving from the old system of traditional attractions to a new system powered by XR. The panel explores marketing best practices, building community through esports, revenue per square foot benchmarks, and how user-generated content can drive growth.

You’ll hear how operators are experimenting with local leagues, how marketers think about differentiation and brand, why reviews and authenticity matter more than polished ads, and why industry-wide standards are essential to scaling. Social media strategist Jacob closes the session with a case study showing how a single authentic video generated 25 million views and half a million shares for Zero Latency.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why the immersive entertainment industry is at a tipping point, and how communities of practice can accelerate adoption.

• Insights from operators on integrating esports into VR venues and the challenges of standardization.

• Marketing takeaways: the importance of brand differentiation, user-generated content, and online reviews.

• Why tracking revenue per square foot is critical for operators, and how few do it today.

• The role of schools and local communities in building sustainable esports programs.

• A behind-the-scenes breakdown of a viral Zero Latency video that generated 500,000 shares and 30,000+ new followers.

• How authenticity in content creation beats polished campaigns, and why younger creators often outperform agencies.

Featured Guests:

• Jacob Giacobbi – Founder, CrowdSpecs, social media strategist for LBE.

• Katie Burke – Creative Director & GM, Pelagius VR.

• Salem Thyne – Operator, E-Sports Virtual Arenas.

• Andre Lawless – Founder, Lawless Marketing.

Links & Resources:

• Replay Magazine: https://www.replaymag.com

• Follow Bob’s blog: www.bobcooney.com/blog

Summary:
Bob Cooney brings together pioneers of immersive technology to explore the concept of the downloadable theme park, an evolution in location-based VR where experiences can be changed at the push of a button. This conversation dives into the opportunities, challenges, and transformational potential of VR and mixed reality in entertainment and beyond.

From wingsuit flight simulators to massive free-roam facilities, the panelists share how scalable virtual attractions could replace costly physical infrastructure, unlocking new business models for operators worldwide. They also tackle the role of standards, distribution bottlenecks, and how shared experiences in VR can create deeper human connection and even personal transformation.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why the future of attractions may be software-driven, not hardware-locked.

• James Jensen’s story of Jump, a VR wingsuit flight experience that blends fear, presence, and transformation.

• How Brent Bushnell’s “DreamPark” project brings mixed reality into real-world spaces, turning city parks into giant game arenas.

• Salem Thyne’s vision for converting massive esports facilities into scalable VR entertainment hubs.

• The business case: throughput, revenue per square foot, and why VR can deliver 5x the experience at a fraction of the cost.

• How the shift from atoms to bits could redefine theme parks, escape rooms, and family entertainment centers.

• Why standards in operations, distribution, and content delivery are critical to scaling this new ecosystem.

• How VR’s transformational power goes beyond fun—to education, training, therapy, and even real estate.

Featured Guests:

• 
  

• James Jensen – Co-founder of The Void and creator of Jump by Limitless Flight.

• Brent Bushnell – Co-founder of Two Bit Circus and innovator behind Dream Park mixed reality.

• • Salem Thyne – Pioneered the U.S. launch of EVA (Esports Virtual Arenas), exploring large-scale free-roam VR operations.
  • Bob Cooney – Host, industry strategist, and XR thought leader.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Jump: https://limitlessflight.com

• Explore Two Bit Circus: https://twobitcircus.com

• Follow Bob Cooney’s blog: www.bobcooney.com/blog

  
  

Show Notes:
In this closing keynote from the 2025 VR Arcade and Attractions Summit, Brent Bushnell shares 20 years of building public entertainment with candor and optimism. This talk guides us through a tour through prototypes, venues, shutdowns, pivots, and the birth of DreamPark.

What’s inside:

• From early interactive art and story rooms to Two Bit Circus, and why permanent venues beat temporary installs.

• How a split between nonprofit and for-profit unlocked school programs, STEAM curricula, and upcycled makerspaces.

• Lessons from failed experiments, including 360 video, phones as controllers, and complex robot bartenders.

• Covid realities, landlord dynamics, a SPAC that collapsed, and why great investors matter.

• DreamPark mixed reality in city parks, guests navigating real spaces safely, and a practical kit for operators.

• Pricing tests, revenue models, and the case for hour-long experiences that justify a trip across town.

Brent closes with a simple theme: keep building, learn fast, and get up one more time than you fall.