Credit: VRCadia
A new chill lounge, called VRCadia, is hitting the downtown area for a designated space to play virtual reality with your friends and family. With many different booths to play a wide variety of games, it’s an entertainment location for Richmond.
Daniel Kharlas is the general manager at the location, where he’s very excited to be in the center of where students from Western University and Fanshawe College live and can hang out.
“We want different people to be able to go through a variety of different experiences centered around virtual reality. But we also do a large amount of different kinds of events that focus around how we can bring virtual reality and combine it with things like art, music, culture and just create new experiences with that combination.”
Credit: VRCadia
But with other VR locations around the city, such as The Rec Room and Dreamland, how is VRCadia going to get people to come to this specific location to play VR?
“Our biggest differentiator is one, our location, so we’re right downtown, we’re on Richmond Row, so in that way we’re right where students want to go out. That’s another part of us is we’re kind of a nighttime experience. We do a lot of different events like live music events, and art events that also differentiate us.”
Credit: VRCadia
Kharlas adds that although the bars and clubs downtown are great, having a location like VRCadia in the downtown area adds another option for where people can go and hang out at nighttime.
Not only does this location add a spot for people to hang out, it also gives job opportunities to those in the community who are looking for work in a field that works with technology and video games.
“We’re always hiring, so VR facilitators is the position that we’re hiring for, so people who have an interest in curating people’s VR experiences, so learning about the whole industry of VR and finding out how they can use virtual reality a really positive experiences.”
VRCadia will be located on the corner of Richmond and Oxford. Their grand opening takes place on January 26th, with free VR games to those who come in to check it out.
