Getting into the newest VR theme park has proven to be a difficult task, as The VOID opened a number of beta testing slots for their Salt Lake City location on Friday and were immediately snapped up within hours.
Tickets to The Void’s first public beta testing were only $10 at the day of launch, that is if you were lucky enough to secure a time slot. According to the team at The Void, tickets “sold out within hours,” with several slots running throughout the days leading up to October 26th.
The Void combines an untethered VR experience with room-scale tracking, or rather ‘facility-scale’ tracking. But like the Tardis, The Void is bigger on the inside. The physical tracking space allows you enough room to experience ‘redirected walking’, a phenomenon that essentially fools you into believing you’re walking a straight line in the real world when in reality you’re walking at a curve. This allows you to fit a much more expansive VR experience inside of a smaller physical space.
The Void is a multi-user space, which uses a custom-built VR headset featuring dual high-density curved OLED Displays (1080P per-eye beginning resolution), a haptic vest, as well as haptic gloves.
Road to VR‘s Chris Madsen got an exclusive first look of The Void last May, concluding that it was “exciting to experience first-hand how wireless tracking combined with the [mixed-reality] environments contributed to achieving and maintaining long moments of presence.”
Madsen continues:
It appeared I had landed in some sort of facility. With no tethers, I was able to step freely into the virtually rendered world surrounding me. Five steps in and my heart beat picked up as I experienced the freedom of wireless tracking, making it feel as though I was walking into a dream. At 10 steps I spun around and shook my head to see if I would break the illusion. There was no noticeable latency and the tracking, matching my physical space with the virtual, felt spot on.
In regards to Friday’s blowout ticket sale, The Void says that it not only serves to gauge interest, but was also useful to determine how their booking and ticketing system functions in the face of public demand, which may have faltered due to a few lost reservations.
If you’re still chomping at the bit to get into the first-of-its-kind VR theme park, we suggest you keep an eye on The Void’s Facebook page, because they “will be looking at opening more times in the future.”
