By Michaela Gaaserud

Exhibitions have no limits when they’re created in virtual reality.  That’s what more and more museums are happily learning as VR pushes the visitor experience into a whole new realm.

As immersive exhibitions stretch beyond physical walls, VR allows new, exciting ways for museums to connect and build relationships with visitors.  

With VR, visitors can interact with people, artifacts, plants, animals, even distant planets, in an environment that transcends time and space. It also engages younger generations through the use of breakthrough technology and helps position museums as fun, rewarding destinations.

As creative minds are challenged to offer better, more exciting experiential exhibits, museums are also finding that development costs for VR can be rough on the budget.  

This is one reason that MANY members EXPLUS, Inc. and Frameless Technologies combined decades of museum exhibition development experience with cutting-edge technology to create The Way Box – a VR exhibition tool that provides museums an economical way to feature new VR exhibits on a regular basis.

The Way Box is delivered built-out and ready to for visitors to experience the exhibition in virtual reality. It can be installed in museum of all sizes, with configuration options that range from 4 to 24 seats. Each visitor enters The Way Box and has their own VR station, equipped with a headset, interactive features (such as hand gesture hardware) and atmospheric enhancers (such as heat, cold, wind, etc.). The visitor then enjoys a personal, interactive, 5-7-minute VR experience.

“The concept is simple, yet The Way Box solves many challenges faced by museums,” says Duncan Burt, President of EXPLUS, Inc. “It fits into limited space, doesn’t require custom build-out and can increase earned income.  It also delivers fresh exhibit content on a regular, predictable basis.”

The Way Box also offers a subscription model for museums sharing a common focus (science, history, aviation, etc.). These themed subscriptions provide fresh, immersive VR exhibits where the content and technology are replaced/updated on an annual basis.

The Way Box custom model allows for the development of unique VR experiences for specific museums that can be featured long term and replaced/updated as desired.

According to Burt, “The Way Box makes VR accessible to museums with smaller budgets by essentially spreading the development costs among subscribers. It also delivers high-end interactive and atmospheric features that elevate the user experience.”

The Way Box is rolling out in 2019.  For more information, contact Dave Coughlin at EXPLUS, Inc. at: dcoughlin@explusinc.com