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VR and AR for festivals and events: four ways to book it

If you run a festival, a launch or a venue and you have a corner of floor and a day to fill, this page is for you. It says what I can put there, what I've put on festival floors before, and what each option costs.

I'm Dale Deacon. I run Worldbuild, a small XR studio in Johannesburg, and I started weAReVR.Jozi, the city's VR meetup, in 2018.

Where this has worked before

  • During Covid we built the A MAZE Train Jam's train station in VRChat (2020), so the jam could still meet when nobody could travel.
  • Red Sea Immersive (2021): a VRChat worlds collection in the official VR programme of the first Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah.
  • Glass Angels, our Meta Quest piece set in the Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda, was on the Fak'ugesi 2026 exhibition floor in Johannesburg, mosaic owl headset and all.
  • For three years (2024 to 2026) we built the official VRChat Worlds Gallery for Venice Immersive, with MetaVerse Crew curators, up to the 83rd Venice Film Festival.
  • DOLLHOUSE for Queer Imaginaries, with Queer.Space and Electric South, showed at IDFA DocLab 2024 and Sheffield DocFest 2025.
  • Made in the Cape Market (2023), with Accenture Song for Wesgro, put AR, audio and visuals on a real market at the V&A Waterfront.
  • Life of Confidence(2023): the environment and world for Sanlam's metaverse launch, with Black Ginger and King James Group / Accenture Song.

Four ways to book it

1. A virtual festival site. A VR destination for your festival, so an international audience can attend from wherever they are. People meet in avatar, browse the line-up and hop between works together. We did this for the A MAZE Train Jam during Covid, for Red Sea Immersive, and for Venice Immersive three years running. Quoted per festival.

2. Commission an experience. We build something exciting together: a VR experience made to your brief, which you can show again after the event. The build is only part of it. Someone has to buy or rent the headsets and plan and run the in-person side with care: queues, hygiene, onboarding, staff. We handle both. From R40,000 for a light piece of one to two weeks; from R80,000 for a full commission of six weeks or more.

3. Location-based VR.Multiplayer games and experiences are the pinnacle of VR. Location-based VR is the cream of the crop: a social, interactive game for a group of people, sharing one space and playing together in the room. This is the most ambitious option, so it's quoted per project.

4. License an existing piece. Show a Worldbuild project that has already been on festival floors, like Glass Angels or DOLLHOUSE. Nothing new gets built, so this works even a week out. If you want it, we bring headsets, set up and run the stand for the day. From R15,000 for one event day.

All prices are in rand. Worldbuild is not VAT registered, so there's no VAT on top.

Until 31 October 2026, new VR builds (options 1 to 3) are half the usual fee. Details are at worldbuild.io/hyperspeed.

What you provide

For anything in person: power at the stand, a table, and clear floor space for each headset (we'll measure it on a site visit or a call). Parking or load-in access for the kit. If the event is outside Gauteng, travel and a bed are on you. A person from your side at the stand is welcome and lowers the price.

How it works

Send a short brief or book an hour. We scope it together, then a one-page proposal fixes the fee, the dates and what's included. Half the fee secures the date; the rest is due after the event or on delivery.

Get in touch

Send a brief at worldbuild.io/hyperspeed (name, email and a sentence is enough) or email d@worldbuild.io. Meetings are an hour, weekdays between 10:00 and 15:00, Johannesburg time.

Virtually yours, Deac