Organising and curating XR Film Festival: 15 tips on how to make it right

Film Festival audience is one of the best fits for creative XR projects?—?the nature of film festivals is to provide an exclusive experience, rare films, and premieres, especially in non-mainstream genres and formats.

Virtual reality and XR have been a festival regular for the last 10 years?—?yet, cinematic VR experiences are still not that easy to watch unless you are traveling to the world's most famous festivals?—?Venice, and Cannes (that added VR as a part of the competition only this year), Tribeca, SXSW, IDFA, Raindance?—?you name it. And then there are a whole bunch of other festivals that tried to showcase cinematic XR works but decided not to do that anymore.

That is why it is super important to organize your XR showcase so that the audience can experience it properly, otherwise, you might get the opposite of what you wanted?—?instead of promoting VR to the masses, you would turn them against this emerging media. So there is a group of questions that a festival curator or VR enthusiast might address:

• What is the budget needed for that and where should I get it?
• How to curate the selection of XR works?
• How to organize a VR showcase from a technical perspective?
• What should be the scale of the event to create a proper impression and be sure that the audience had a nice experience?

These are just a few first things that come to mind, but each of those questions uncovers dozens more.

Our team at Film XR has been organizing big and small showcases all over the world since 2016, as well as participating with our productions in major international film festivals. Even though the technology changes and newer generations of headsets, as well as the software behind them, make any guide outdated, the principles of organizing an event stay the same, so let’s try to cover them step by step.

1. What should be treated as VR Film Festival / XR Festival / Immersive Showcase?

Over 70 regular events are happening yearly with a well-standing reputation which might be called “XR Film Festival”, “XR/VR section of the Festival” or “Pop-up VR Theatre” within the festival. Give or take 10–15 more Awards and Conferences?—?and you’ll get the right number.

For the last 8 years, we’ve been posting our XR Festivals Deadlines Calendar, updating the deadlines and up-to-date info about the events, and we’ve seen events appearing and disappearing, announcing the VR program and taking it off the program.

The main elements which determine the event to be treated as a Festival / Showcase / VR section are:

- Selection of works with a clear idea behind that selection. If you are just going to show one or two works in a pop-up zone?—?it is not yet a festival or section, it is a special screening of those specific projects. So it is important to have a program similar to the programs in the film festivals?—?and it doesn’t have to be a competition program straight ahead, you can start with non-competitive selections.

- Organisation of a clear scheduling system and access to the program, including the existence of the descriptions of the works, the possibility for visitors to learn more about them before experiencing them in VR, and a clear understanding of the format of the work (interactive/non-interactive).? As in many other festivals, people are not just coming to “watch films” or “play in VR”. They are festival goers, meaning they are coming to a specific work and having some specific expectations. Don’t treat VR as a selling point itself?—?it is just a technology, which helps to experience narrative storytelling in a new way (for visitors). Each work should have a proper representation both online and preferably physically with a description and guidance.

- VR zone has its own space and technical capacity to provide the experiences properly and without disturbance.? It is still quite often for VR zones to be placed in film theatre lobbies, without headphones, proper furniture and decorations, and any security and safety zones for the the users. Of course, it comes because of the budget limitations, but in the end, the experience would be satisfying neither for visitors nor for the organizer. And for sure it would be against everything the creator of the experience is standing.

So, first and foremost?—?please consider the VR part of your event seriously and use the best practices from traditional film festival management and curation.

2. Curation. Programming. Competition. Best?Of.

There is quite a difference between a festival programmer and a festival curator. However, sometimes it is made by the same person, especially in XR. The Festival programmer, alongside the programming director, selects the works based on the criteria they have decided on with the pure goal of emphasizing the creative quality of the work and its audience potential.

Curatorship goes a little bit beyond that, it delivers the vision behind the selection and often includes not just the selection of the submitted project, but a hunt for specific projects fitting the idea of the curator, commissioning of works for the event, and supervision of the implementation of the concept into the space. In many ways, festival curators are using the existing works to combine them into a new message, and new vision?—?their creative work which is collected with the other works.

That’s a super oversimplified overview, as people could (and I’m pretty sure did) write the whole Ph.D about the festival programming/curation/producing and still didn’t cover all the subjects. Major advice in this part would be:

• analyze the markets and the existing festivals/programs that have a similar vision to yours.? Start with overviewing a selection of the premiere festivals like Venice Immersive, Cannes Immersive, SXSW, Tribeca, IDFA DocLab, and others: as with traditional festivals, sometimes you need to travel to the festivals to experience the works and now what you are looking for Explore the catalogs of the recent editions of XR-only festivals?—?NewImages Festival and Market, FIVARS, Beyond the Frame Festival, Art?VR?—?Virtual Reality Film Festival, and others?—?those are putting quite a huge hope in VR and are concentrating only on that medium, so you could be sure they are doing their best to keep up with the quality of the selection in order to get the right audience and not count to regular film fans.
• based on your focus (documentary, animation, science fiction, social issues, pure entertainment) try to make a “dream selection” of the works no matter how old they are. For many festivals, there is a big problem with showing old works, however with XR being quite a young medium, you still have to consider works from 3–4 years ago as new. Not only that?—?by making a selection of “the world's best / awarded works on the subject” (f.e. disability) you would set yourself a proper mark of what you are looking for in a “fresh” selection. Many works in VR were done so great, that they are still setting the example for all of us. And if you are doing a showcase for the first time in your city/region/country?—?having a small “retrospective” dedicated to a genre work is sometimes even better, than showcasing new works only.

• don’t rush with the competition. It takes time to establish your festival’s reputation That’s quite controversial advice which depends on the budget and ambitions, but in reality, it takes quite some time to get used for a physical exhibition, technical limitations, management of the jury, and participants to make the competition good. Make one step at a time?—?start with a great non-competitive exhibition, establish your audience and reputation within the industry, and initiate a competition next year. For sure if you have a cash prize, you could start with the competition?—?big and small studios will submit anyway, cash prize is a cash prize. However, depending on the scale of the jury and prize, it might become a nightmare to meet the expectations of the creators of the selected works.
• if you are going to non-competitive section, be ready to pay license fees The VR industry is not that sustainable to let anyone watch the work for free. Depending on whether you are going to sell tickets or not, how many devices and how many days you are planning to show the works, you’d have to negotiate for a license fee with distributors and content creators. Of course, there is a general rule that if the work competes with a cash prize, the fee might be waived, but to get there you need to establish a reputation (that we’ve discussed in a previous point). What could be done there? Speak with the cultural offices of the embassies representing countries of production?—?Institute Francais, Goethe Institute, British Council, Cultural Department of the U.S. Embassy, and many others have special budgets to promote their content in the region, so they might help you to waive the fee or cover it.

• quality and quantity?—?eternal question. Don’t make the program too big to underexpose some works, but not too small to leave the visitors unsatisfied. There is no real recipe for how many works to add to your program, but as I’ve established earlier, 1–2 work is not a program yet but rather a special showcase. At the same time, having 16–20 projects makes it quite hard for one visitor to experience it all. Also, with the big selection comes a huge installation, technical execution, and production costs, and overviewing the exhibition with 20 works is a state-of-the-art work only a few of us are handling well. So think of the comfort quantity of the works which would fit your vision and which one visitor might be possibly watching over 2 days. Those hardcore visitors exist everywhere, however, the majority would be satisfied with watching just one or two works to get an impression. And if you are working with the general audiences and press, there always be an oversaturated “highlight” of your exhibition that everyone would be interested in watching (word of mouth, press reviews, awards, celebrities attached to the project, etc) lead to disbalance between this and other works in terms of the amount of views.

• Interactive or 360 should not be a question, the question is if you can use the medium to your advantage. 360 Video is a genre of its own, that naturally exists in a film festival environment. With less depth of freedom and interactivity, 360 films are still captivating the audience. Mostly seated experiences, utilizing swivel chairs and bar stools, 360 works could actually give you something that interactive experiences could not?—?the number of visitors. The well-known idea of VR Cinema is one of the great things festivals could do by letting any number of visitors experience 360 films simultaneously. As a professional who stopped counting the number of people who experienced 360 videos within his events after 35000 people, I can say, that those simultaneous showcases for over 50 headsets work like magic?—?people start watching the film from the same position, but over the development of the film they start to look into different sides and you can feel their version of storytelling. Add streaming from one of the headsets to the screen?—?and you’ll have a full experience for people without 360 headsets, who would just enjoy watching other people watching films. However, 360 is just a small part of what XR can offer?—?think of AR, installations, and of course, XR works that require space and decoration. The combination of those might give the viewer the best experience and by going through the different mediums, the viewer will understand the power of creative VR, not to mention the joy of experiencing each work.

3. Technology. Equipment. Software. Control.

This part could age quickly, but there are several general concepts which didn’t change since we started 8 years ago. Ok, now we have Meta Quests 2/3, HTC Vive Pro, Pico Neo 4, and Apple Vision Pro. What to do with it? I’ll list several practical observations, but that doesn’t mean they are the only possible way:

• PC VR Tethered works If your works are PC VR experiences, we suggest not using AirLink setup and still going with wire, unless you could invest in a separate network dedicated only to this experience (having 2–3 on one network could work actually with a proper wi-fi router and signal extenders). Use Link cable but keep in mind, that the headset would discharge quicker than it would be charging. That is why for PC VR tethered works I prefer to have 2 headsets, both installed on the PC and interchangeable, as one will discharge in 3–4 hours depending on how often people use it (and how often it has some “sleep time” to charge. Headphones?—?depending on how good you want the setup to look, you can either pair Bluetooth headphones or go with cable ones. A wire is not pretty, but Bluetooth has too many reasons to disconnect. And wired don’t require battery life. Going without headphones at the festivals is usually a bad option as it destroys the experience for visitors. That doesn’t apply to HTC Vive Pro, those require quite a cable work and station setup, but for many of my festivals I used HTC instead in the low light setup and it worked great!

• Standalone VR works on Quest 2/3/Pico For standalone works the best would be to use headsets with additional batteries (think of BoboVR M2/M3 Pro or Kiwi design or others), and change and charge the batteries, not headsets. Together with headphones, the setup doesn’t look well, but hiding the cables makes the photos for PR look good. Bonus for standalone VR works which we used at one of our recent events: you can set up standalone devices to stream/cast to one of your “control” computers, so you’ll have all the footage from all the headsets and know what’s happening inside. Draining battery and wifi more, but worth it for quick control. We utilized the approach in a minimalistic space by giving external visitors the ability to feel themselves in a surveillance room and see what’s happening on the screens of the visitors

• 360 Films. As mentioned before, there is a great possibility to bring more people to experience your festival program by utilizing 360 simultaneous remote starts. There are several solutions in the market that you can use: Showtime VR, VR Sync, VRCM, Headjack.io, EZ360, and other proprietary solutions are working with it, but it takes time and experience to set everything up, as well you’ll need to buy a proper software license based on your needs. Most of the systems make it that way that the files are stored locally on the headset and the system just sends a command to start them. Depending on the software, you might need an internet connection or do it autonomously, but all of them give you back the data about the temperature of your headset and the battery power. With 360 films, ideally, you need to have the same BoboVR M2/M3 external battery or make a schedule with a proper break to charge the headsets, or to have the second set of headsets to replace them. The decision comes with the experience, as many factors influence the charge of the headset: temperature in the venue, use of wi-fi (and you need one to build the network between headsets and control panel), compression of the video (8k h.265 stereoscopic 60 fps video and 4k h.264 monoscopic 30 fps video would exhaust the headset differently), so never underestimate the scheduling and proper rest of the devices. Running a test day in advance with a few days to tune the final setup would be the best.

• If to go with a solo showcase of 360 videos, there are many ways to do it, including the in-build meta TV player, using VR players like DeoVR, downloading a self-starting app (so-called kiosk mode available on Pico Headsets and a mess on Meta headsets). In our case, we built the custom app for Quests that imitates “kiosk mode” but it always has too many problems and gets outdated quickly after new software updates by Quest themselves. So, even though it is not that “cool” going with DeoVR might be the easiest option for a solo showcase of one video.

4. Budget, Organisation, PR, and?Planning

The last part of this overview will be dedicated to the toughest part?—?let’s say, you know what you want to show, which equipment to use, and have an overall idea of how you want it to look. What’s next?

Funding and budgeting for VR exhibitions is not something universal, but there are several tips:

• Find a technological partner. It might be a local VR club that has lots of equipment but would be happy to have exposure for a reduced rent price and technical assistance. For headsets sometimes it is worth writing to the official dealer in the country, this way, for example, HTC headsets might be loaned to you. As for the PC VR experiences?—?global brands also usually have demo-fund which might be loaned for the event. It’s a good start anyway. The key is not to forget to give them proper exposure, but not to modify your concept too much to meet their expectations.

• Don’t expect sponsors to be willing to give money in the first year of the event. From our experience, you need to have at least one year of good “proof of concept” before you can approach sponsors to be part of your event if you are independent. It works differently when you are an established traditional film festival?—?that’s where you can reach sponsors by introducing the VR section. Think of Mobile/Telecom first and try to approach them in November-December before the year of the event. Any huge corporation that had done some experiments with VR (automotive, health, banks)?—?might be interested as well if they would be integrated into the exhibition with their works.
• Speak with the Embassies and Cultural institutions within the Embassies. Mentioned this before, but still worth reminding you. Institute Francais has one of the world's greatest initiatives to promote VR?—?La Selection VR. By partnering with the French Institute, you could focus on French XR creations (which have actually received almost all awards possible) and get the projects for your exhibition. Other countries like the UK, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden might be of help here as well, especially knowing, that the French Institute is on board. But don’t expect them to pay anything?—?their goal is to promote their work and not cover your expenses. However, it could save you money and even make it possible to cover the travel of international guests.

• Scheduling and selling tickets are connected much more than you think. If you are selling tickets, provide several options for access, including a free one. Selling tickets to VR programs is ok. Sometimes you have to share the profits with the venue (and it is one way of negotiating with the venue). Math comes with understanding how many visitors maximum you could have a day which is counted with the amount of VR stations, duration of the reservation slots, and format of the works. Think like that:? - you have 6 interactive stations, each showing one work, and you have shows every half an hour for 10 hours a day, making it 120 people/day. - you have 10 360 film stations starting as one show every half an hour for 10 hours with two 1-hour breaks for charging making it 10x8x2 160 people/day.? So, with 16 headsets you could have around 280 people a day?—?the capacity of a regular film hall for the 1.5-hour film. That doesn’t make economic sense unless you’re sponsored or don’t expect the tickets to give you profit, but cover the expenses of the workforce (docens, technical assistants, etc) used for the exhibition. However, you can scale the numbers to get somewhere using this idea.
• The more structured your exhibition and booking system is, the better it is for you and the audience. Some festivals and exhibitions provide you with a ticket to come around and try what’s free. Usually, that doesn’t work well. The better discipline you have with pre-booking the slot for a specific program or film, the better control of the event you have. Use online booking systems like Simplybook and others, which would give you control over the event. Sometimes you can make the online reservation for free but the visitor would have to pay at the entrance and save you transaction fees.

• Never underestimate the power of social media and bloggers, but regular press releases are important too. Truly speaking, we are in 2024, and official press releases work for some audiences but give you just a small amount of really involved visitors. Social media, bloggers, thematic groups, “word of mouth”, paid promotions in the messenger groups and Instagram works much better than press releases. If you are going official?—?and you need to do that if you have sponsors?—?make a press day, the best 2 or 3 days in advance before the official event. That would let you have a final check of the format, be sure that your volunteers and docents know their equipment and technology well, as well as it would take time for news to be published. Don’t forget about students of IT, film, and marketing?—?by organizing group visits with the Universities, you might have a better social media organic reach to a wider group, than by paying for advertising. But all these things come with the experience, you find your tune at some point.
• Love your teammates. They are here not for money Most likely, you will make a good team with volunteers, enthusiasts, and professionals, who would be happy to help you in your journey of promoting cultural VR events. Feed your people, give them drinks, and check that they are fine. VR is a small world and once you’ll find a good person to take care of your guest?—?stick to this person, as you can build a team with them for many years. Not everyone works great, but some are just amazing and you want to keep them around for other events.

Conclusion and some inspirations

This is just a quite overview of things to consider when planning to start the festival. Of course, ideally, you could have a great team executing it for you, but sometimes you just have to start something to understand things by yourself.

Many great VR Event partners in the market does their job amazingly:

1) Diversion Cinema (France)?—?leading company behind the major cinematic VR showcases in the world including the recent Cannes Immersive. They own their system for remote control and the start of both 360 and interactive works, as well as work as a distribution company with their catalog of amazing VR projects.

2) INVR (Germany)? —?the leading company in Germany and internationally with their proprietary sync system and equipment.

3) Film XR (Estonia-Serbia)?—?that’s us, we usually organize and curate our events, but help festivals with technical execution and partners if needed!

If you want to follow the news of the festivals and the vision behind the curator’s idea?—?please read interviews at XRMUST.COM.

And just to conclude, here are some inspirations from festivals:

And of course, please feel free to ask questions in the comments!

—?—?—? Author: Georgy Molodtsov, Film XR

XR Director, Producer, Festival Curator Television Academy Emerging Media Peer Group Member, Webby Award winner, PGA Innovation Award Nomination, Raindance Immersive Award winner

Festivals: goEast Film Festival Open Frame Award (2018–2023), VR_SciFest (2017–2020), Tbilisi VR Days 2023, CannesXRussia 2021, EMC VR Film Fest 2016, Russian VR Seasons Showcase (2017–2021), Contemporary Science Festival VR Section (2018–2020), etc.