For the DIVR Science Award Markus Rall announced the 20 nominated university teams from all over Germany and Switzerland who will exhibit their applications at the festival. With this award, the German Institute for Virtual Realities (DIVR) together with the Places _ Festival selects new innovative VR projects at universities in different categories. Among the nominees are, for example, projects dealing with design, learning processes up to Parkinson’s disease research using virtual reality. All nominees can be found here.

The nominations for Startup Pitch also include Artivive from Vienna, a nominee from the neighbouring countries, in addition to participants from Germany. All nominated companies get the chance to present their innovative business idea to an expert jury and potential investors on the evening of the festival on August 21st. Information about the participating startups can be found here.

Creative _ Places, the residency programme of the Insane Urban Cowboys e.V. will bring together artists from near and far in August. With creatives from Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Essen and Ghent (Belgium), this part of the programme will also be international. The aim of the programme is to bring Virtual Reality together with artists who will implement a new VR project in a one-week temporary flat share, which they will present at the festival weekend at the end of their time together. You can find out exactly who the artists are here.

In addition, Matthias Krentzek and Roman Pilgrim – our festival management – have announced in the live stream an update on how the festival will be carried out under the Corona protection measures: The Places _ Virtual Reality Festival will definitely take place on the planned date in August and will not be postponed again. Together with the responsible persons of the city of Gelsenkirchen, we will observe the further development of the pandemic. If things continue to develop positively, as many programme items as possible should take place on site in Gelsenkirchen.

Based on the assumption that the regulations then in force will allow the event to be held under hygiene and distance requirements, all visitors will once again be able to try out a wide range of VR applications free of charge. One thing is already certain: There will be no stage and program points where larger groups would come together at one place as planned. Attractive digital formats will be used here. We will keep you up to date here and in the social media.