vec 2019 virtual reality htc

VEC 2019 review: my experience at the Vive Ecosystem Conference

One week ago, I have attended the Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen, China. It is a very important event for VR, but since it is in China, many famous Western VR journalists are not going there because of the big distance and so there is a little mystery about how this event actually is. But you have your favorite Ghost that has gone there and that can tell you everything you need about the VEC, so that you know what to expect if you plan to go there next year. Are you curious?

Shenzhen
shenzhen china vr
The view from my Hotel in the city. They were building new skyscrapers just in front of me

In the last years, the VEC has taken place in Shenzhen. The city is for sure worth a visit: it is so new (it has something like 35 years) that has been designed so that to take in count all the most modern architectural rules. This means that as opposed to many other Chinese cities, traffic jams are very limited since the city has been conceived so that to host many cars.

To be a technological city, it is surprisingly full of green: there are trees everywhere. And where there are not trees, there are skyscrapers. Imagine a city that 35 years ago was a village of fishermen and now it is full of skyscrapers… the growth it is having is insane. At night, the view of the city is just beautiful.

It is also worth a visit the technological district, where you can find a lot of electronic devices and electric parts from which building your own prototype there. There are these buildings with inside so many booths selling you all electrical and electronic component you can think of, and helping you in welding your own prototype, that if you are a maker, you will feel the desire to live there.

Chinese vs English

If someone tells you that you can go to Shenzhen and just speak English, don’t believe him. Most of the times you ask someone “Do you speak English?”, the answer will be “No”, or “a bit” or, in alternative, you will see the panic in his/her eyes. It is better if you go there:

  • with some knowledge of Mandarin;
  • with someone that can speak Mandarin;
  • taking with you a travel book with some pre-set sentences;
  • having at least someone to call if you really get stuck in a problematic conversation (I have called my assistant Miss S at some point because I wasn’t able to send a package alone).

You can do like me and try speaking Mandarin sometimes. This will guarantee you a lot of fantastic embarrassing moments. Once I asked a beer for lunch, and the waitress understood that we wanted to drink Vodka (well, the lunch would have been more entertaining for sure…). Another time I wanted to ask where was the bathroom and instead I asked where were the absorbents for women (that guy has surely thought I was on my period). I also tried to speak in Chinese with a guy that answered me “Hey dude, I am for Korea” (at that moment, I would have liked to disappear in the bushes as Homer Simpson). But my favorite time ever has been when a Taxi driver had a dialogue in Chinese with me for half an hour, with me understanding like 5% of what he said, answering to his questions just saying random stuff around the 2 words that I understood from his questions.

All the VEC is in Chinese. Most of the slides are in English, but most of the speeches (like 75%) are in Mandarin. Luckily, in the morning there was a translation service (we were provided a headphone connected to a live translator), and so we were able to get everything. The problem is that in the afternoon, this service wasn’t available… so we Western people were just reading the slides the whole time. When even the slides were in Chinese, we just nodded our head pretending that we understood everything. Never show your weak points 😉

What I want to say is: be prepared to an event mostly targeted at Chinese people.

The location
vec 2019 virtual reality htc
Me, super excited when the event was about to begin. I was a super-VIP with my name written on the chair :O

The VEC 2019 was held inside a wing of a big shopping mall in Shenzhen. I found the choice a bit weird in the beginning, but actually, Chinese shopping malls are so big that everything is possible there 😀

There was a convention area where there was the stage for all the talks and various corridors where there were demos of the various VR technologies. The idea of the organizers was that you had to listen to the talks and then, during the pauses, go to the booths and try all the demos.

I expected the convention area to be a bit bigger… but probably HTC didn’t want to make a bombastic event with thousands and thousands of people there, but preferred a more sober event with some hundreds of people in the audience and thousands following the online stream.

The talks

In the morning there has been the keynote with the launch of the Vive Focus Plus and then some talks and panels by partners of HTC. This means listening to a lot of important people. Just to say one name for all, the second talk of the day has been hosted by Nolan Bushnell, one of the fathers of computer gaming… he explained how he created the Atari empire and how he really believes that Virtual Reality is the future of gaming.

nolan bushnell vr
Nolan Bushnell really believes that Virtual Reality is the next big thing in out-of-home entertainment

In the afternoon, there were other talks, divided into two categories: enterprises and developers. I went listening to the developers’ track, also because I myself had to have a speech there. In this part of the event, it was possible to hear various developers of software for HTC devices (like us, or like Mozilla, etc…) talk about their products and strategies of development and also various HTC engineers detail the latest news of the Vive SDKs.

The talks were interesting to be updated about the latest news and products: for instance, I had the opportunity to see there a picture of the lip tracking device for the Vive Pro. And I also learnt about the eye tracking features or the 3D spatial audio features offered by the Vive SDK .

htc vive pro lip tracking
Lip Tracking module for the HTC Vive Pro. It is quite scary having that thing in front of my mouth…

What I think can be improved is the depth of such talks. Since in the afternoon we had only 15-20 minutes each to speak, it wasn’t possible delving too much into technical details. For instance, I would have found super-interesting a deep-dive talk about how the heck Vive is managing to add finger tracking to a limited-resources device like the Vive Focus, but this was not possible. I hope that next year such talks will be added. And I also hope that next year I will have a translation service all the day.

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
I have to say that some moment sounded even a bit strange to me. This should have been an agreement-signing moment, but to me it seemed that they had to start a television news program… 😀 😀 😀
Having a talk
Me speaking at the VEC. In this moment, I was super worried inside, but I didn’t let people notice that 😀

I have been one of the speakers and I have to say that it has been pretty exciting. I’ve spoken in front of hundreds of people in the audience, knowing that there were thousands watching me live in the stream. It was my first time speaking in front of so many people and it has been so great!

HTC has been kind in supporting me for this. I have been hosted in a very nice hotel, I had the opportunity to rehearse my speech and have suggestions on how to change it and I have also had a translator (Sam), that translated everything I said in Chinese, so people could understand me.

The demos
vec 2019 virtual reality htc
Me trying the bHaptics suit

All around the convention area, there were corridors filled with demo booths. Some of them were games for the just announced Vive Focus Plus (like our game HitMotion: Reloaded!), others showcased the hardware of HTC’s partners (there was the haptic suit bHaptics; there was the eye tracking of 7Invensun; there was the Shadow VR, one of the headsets compatible with Vive Wave, etc…); others showcased HTC’s technologies (e.g. the just announced 6 DOF lite mode for Vive Video, that emulates volumetric features for all 360° videos, or the Streamlink that lets you play XBox games with the Vive Focus). There were a lot of demo booths, and this was really awesome.

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
Shadow VR headset: finally I have been able to try it!!

The demos were so many that was impossible to visit them all in the break times between the talks! So you had better select the ones that are the most important for you to try.

Networking

The VEC can be a good occasion to meet in person:

  • People from HTC;
  • Chinese entrepreneurs;
  • Western people that live in China.

My advice is to start creating some connections before departing from your country, and then when you are at VEC, use Wechat to arrange the meeting with people. The best place to meet new people and make fantastic encounters is the demo area: there you will find not only people showcasing their products (like the guys from bHaptics or from 7Invensun), but also interesting people trying the demos (this is how I finally met the influencer Paula Paulino or the LBVR expert Tony).

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
After so many words exchanged on WeChat, Twitter and Linkedin, finally Paula and I met in person!

If you are one of the speakers, you have further occasions to connect with people thanks to the networking dinners, or during the breakfasts in the hotel. I have found myself having two or three times breakfast with Nolan Bushnell, it was super-exciting! :O

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
Group photo with Nolan Bushnell. Next to me there is Tony, and behind Nolan, you can see the head of Enea Le Fons, with which I spent a lot of time at VEC

The atmosphere of the event is very relaxed and positive, so it is easy to connect with new people. Of course, as I have said, you’ll probably connect only with people that work in the Chinese market, so you have to have interest into that part of the world.

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
Selfie time with the president… he was super elegant for this event

Last but not least, you’ll have the opportunity to meet Mister President. You don’t have to look for him, since he’s just everywhere. He’s on stage, he’s speaking with people at the demo booth, he’s watching the rehearsals, he’s at the networking dinners. Someway, you will meet him… and you will be able to talk with him about the future of VR and be inspired by his words and his relaxed smile.

Alvin Wang Graylin replicating himself to be everywhere during the VEC
Final impressions

So, at this point you will probably ask me if it is worth going there… and as always, I will answer you with “it depends”.

It mostly depends on what is your purpose: if you want to have relations with the VR Chinese market, well, the VEC can help you.

  • Having a talk there can give you visibility in China;
  • Meeting people around the booths will let you connect with Chinese entrepreneurs, journalists and influencers. You can also connect with people from HTC;
  • If you are a journalist, you can get the latest news about HTC before all others. I’ve read lots of very important VR magazines writing incorrect news about HTC’s announcements at VEC… or missing the most important ones. So, this can give you a competitive advantage;
  • Since you are in Shenzhen, you can spend some more days there, to meet people in the city. Thanks to the VEC, I have met a genius guy that is in Shenzhen and that has shown me something that will be the topic of a great post that will come to this blog.

To me, it has been a very good experience. I think that it can be improved, it can be enlarged, but it was already good this way.

vec 2019 virtual reality htc
The VEC also gave me the opportunity to hang out a lot with Enea Le Fons and talk about innovation with him. Here he was trying to relax with a machine invented by the Devil that was squeezing his head

But if your main focus is the USA or Europe, and/or you have no interest in the technologies by HTC or its partners, then the VEC may not be the conference for you. It is very Chinese-oriented. In this case, I would advise to spend your money for some conference in the States.


And that’s it with the description of the VEC. Now you know a bit how it is and what you can expect there. I hope this post has satisfied your curiosity 🙂 Next time I will give you my hands-on impressions with the latest version of the Vive Focus Plus!

(Header image by HTC)


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