At the beginning of the month, we held our first edition of the “Techtoberfest” in our Gatineau office. This was a social event with beer and sausage tastings, as a well as a selection of VR stations. For the latter, we had a HoloLens, an HTC Vive, 2 stations with Oculus Rifts, 3 Google Cardboards (or equivalents), as well as the famous SimWave Sim Booth. Over 220 people responded to our invitation, and it was a blast.
Why a Techtoberfest?
Every quarter, Spiria throws open the doors of its Gatineau office for a special home-made event. Our previous event, Design Disruptors, was such a great success that it was a bit of a challenge to top it. During a quick brainstorming event, we came up with an event around the Oktoberfest theme. Once this was decided, everything else unfolded naturally. Having a few beer geeks on our staff made it easy to find nice craft beers, bringing in a nice selection of 4 different beers from Quebec brewery L’Alchimiste. William J. Walter supplied us with sausage samplings and sauerkraut, while Kettleman’s Bagel Co. helped us to provide our guests with fresh pretzels. Finally, our partners at SimWave contributed to the event by providing us some people to host the VR stations and by bringing in their SimWave VR Booth, which was a hit. We’d like to thank our sponsors, without which we would not have been able to show our guests such a great time.
Why VR-Related Technologies?
It’s a big year for VR. VR tech this good is what we dreamed of as kids. We wanted to give people the chance to get a fun hands-on experience and to get as excited about it as we are, whether they’re new to VR or are tech-heads like us. This technology also has gotten a lot of attention lately. New gear is starting to be available to the general public, with the PlaystationVR and the Oculus Rift. The Google Cardboards are also making VR possible and affordable for schools and community groups. We wanted to give people a chance to try out VR and learn a little bit more about it.
Why Host This Event?
We’re very lucky to have such an inspiring space to work in and to be creative in every day. When we relocated here, we immediately knew we wanted to share the space with the community. These events are great opportunities for us to meet the people who work and live nearby, and for them to see what we’re all about.
What’s Next?
If you’d like to hear about our future events, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter (see below). Many people asked us about a second edition of the Techtoberfest. We are currently working on our next events so we can’t tell you for now, but we can promise you that it’s going to be a lot of fun!