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Oculus debuted a new Oculus Venues app back in March that allows users to attend live events in VR using Oculus-compatible VR gear, and now the company is putting out its official list of all the events people will be able to go to this season. This season’s lineup includes a number of comedy shows, concerts, and NBA games. Movies include, among others, the full lineup of SAW movies, to be played through October on different dates. the full lineup is available via the source link, where you can also register interest for many of the events. As a side note, anybody who attends an NBA game through the service will get two NBA jerseys per game for their Oculus avatar, one for each team you watched.
Many of the previous events on the platform have been free to attend, a major advantage over heading to them live. In the app, you also have the ability to mute strangers who are disrupting your experience. The Oculus Venues app, and thus all of these live shows, are currently only compatible with the standalone Oculus Go and Samsung’s Galaxy Gear headset, which is powered in part by Oculus technology. Support on the PC-based Oculus Rift is reportedly coming, but may take a while yet. It is worth noting that the app is not officially compatible with Vive gear, or any Cardboard or Daydream-based solutions. There are some hacky workarounds that can be used, but they will, in many cases, lead to a suboptimal experience.
Oculus Venues is part of a larger social VR effort by Facebook that’s been using Oculus technology to take the internet social experience a step further by adding in a VR element. The social media giant has previously allowed friends to interact in VR in a number of different scenarios, but Oculus Venues is its boldest attempt yet. The app is open to anybody who owns the right gear, which means that a large number of strangers could be interacting at large-scale live events. The service is still in its infancy, but given the history of VR attendance of live events, it’s hard to be pessimistic at this point.
