Lessons Building XR at Scale – Meetup #26

Join us at a 1 Circle Square to hear from a Silicon Valley XR veteran, try some VR demos, and (as always), join in the chat with immersive enthusiasts from Greater Manchester and beyond.

We're so excited to be hosted by our old friends Bruntwood SciTech who will also be providing food and drink. Please join us in thanking them for their help in keeping our community alive.

The venue is just off Oxford Road. To find us, come into Symphony Park opposite The Dancehouse/Northern Ballet School. Once you've found No1 Circle Square, come into the main entrance and go up the open staircase in the main reception to the first floor. Follow it around to the left where we'll be just above the main reception area. Look out for our banner stand to help you.

Please note there will be a well-trained, fully domesticated dog present at our event.

Schedule

• 18:00: Check-in opens.
• 18:30: Food and Drinks served
• 19:00: Welcome & VR Industry Update
• 19:20: Main speaker: Clorama Dorvilias – Lessons I've Learned Building XR at Scale: From Meta to Google)
• 20:00: Community Announcements & Wrap Up
• 20:05: More demos, socialising etc
• 21:00: End, retire for chat and drinks to the Refuge

Talk Details
As a veteran XR practitioner from Silicon Valley and now “across the pond,” Clorama will share lessons learned from building immersive technologies at two of the world’s leading XR companies — Meta and Google.

She'll unpack the different motivations that shaped each company’s approach to XR, how content and partnership strategies evolved, and what these teams look for when hiring or collaborating with developers and creators.

From designing meaningful avatars to nurturing developer ecosystems — and navigating the tension between cutting-edge research and real-world product constraints — this talk will explore what it really takes to build XR at scale, and how smaller teams can apply these insights without needing a billion-dollar budget.

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Demos

ImmersiV XP is a gamified training experience designed to work with accessible VR technology like Google Cardboard. It transforms traditional training into an immersive, interactive journey where users can practice real-world hospitality scenarios in a virtual environment. Alison Magee-Barker (Founder of ImmersivXP) will be demoing the latest prototype and looking for feedback.

The WieldVR OneStock is a high-end, modular VR gunstock designed for serious VR FPS players. Community member Ryan Burnell will be sharing his model for you to try in tandem with the Quest 3.

We're always on the hunt for more demos. If you have something you can share, please fill in this form and let us know: https://forms.gle/kxKuFgzZnXBpJN929