VR

Today we officially wrap up the 88 Names podcast. My co-host Blake Collier and I both have some final thoughts to share. You can read Blake’s sign-off essay here; you’ll find mine here.

I had a blast doing this. I owe a big thank you to Blake and to our heroic producer, Darryl A. Armstrong of the Threaded Zebra Agency. Many thanks also to our wonderful guests; to Tyler Huckabee; to our host site, Rise Up Daily; and last but not least to our sponsors. Stay safe, everyone!

Most of our podcast episodes were recorded before the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. We wanted to follow up with some of our interview subjects, see how they were handling the economic shutdown, and ask if they had any predictions about how this might affect the future of VR and other immersive technologies. Brandon Oldenburg, Joanna Popper, and Noah Nelson share their thoughts here.

We also have one more written interview to share, this one with Troy Heard, Founding Artistic Director of Majestic Repertory Theatre in Las Vegas. The theater scene has been hard hit by the pandemic, and it’s especially difficult for practitioners of immersive theater like Troy. But he has some interesting ideas for adapting to the crisis, like drive-through performances. You can read the interview here.

In this bonus episode of the 88 Names podcast, we talk to Simón Rojas and Amir Ebrahimnia, co-founders of the Toronto-based ad agency Derooted Immersive.

This was our only podcast interview to be recorded during quarantine. We discuss the impact of the pandemic on current business and speculate about how it may affect the future of VR and other technologies that allow people to connect remotely. We also talk about the risks of conducting guerrilla marketing campaigns in a nervous world. (Pro-tip: If you’re going to stage a mock pirate ship battle in a big city harbor, make sure to let the cops know about it in advance.)

Today on the 88 Names podcast site, we have a written interview with Amber Osborne, an award-winning VR and AR marketing strategist (somebody my protagonist John Chu would get on well with, I think). She tells us how she got her start in the industry, talks about the challenges of promoting a technology that isn’t fully developed yet, and shares some thoughts about the future. You can check it out here.

On this episode of the 88 Names podcast, we talk to Noah Nelson, the founder of No Proscenium, a website and podcast devoted to “everything immersive,” though as the name implies, there’s an emphasis on theater and other types of immersive live performance that blur the line between actors and audience.

For me, this was the most eye-opening of the podcast interviews, touching on whole categories of experience that I’d never even considered in connection with 88 Names. By the time we finished talking, I was eager to check out some immersive theater for myself, and Noah generously offered to be my guide when I came to L.A. on book tour. That plan was derailed by the coronavirus, but all is not lost: On the website, Noah writes about how the immersive theater community is trying to adapt to the pandemic, and a frequently updated post lists immersive and interactive experiences that are available online.

A programming note: This is the last “regular” episode of the 88 Names podcast. We have one more special episode that will be dropping shortly, another written interview (with VR marketing consultant Amber Osborne), and then Blake and I will be offering some final thoughts. Stay tuned!