Los Angeles Natural History Museum
Case Study - March 2017

VR Stations

An integral part of Wevr’s mission is to introduce an ever-expanding audience to the highest- quality VR content available.

At this juncture a vast majority of people don’t have access to in-home VR systems. So in order to expose them to the very best VR content, we believe it’s important to deliver it to them: be it in museums, airports, cinemas, malls and more.

From the UAE to North America to China, Wevr has collaborated with as assortment of global partners, providing the exceptional content, state of the art technical skills, and design credentials necessary to make VR available to a truly international audience.
“The best thing Wevr can do is go to where the people are and make it easy for people to access our VR experiences. It's very important to have a lightweight, portable, easy-to-set-up station— a true pop-up VR theatre—with the flexibility to move in and out of locations anywhere in the world.”

- Neville Spiteri, Wevr CEO

Partnership

The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum has consistently embraced new technologies in order to inspire and educate museum visitors of all ages.

When the museum decided to explore the idea of a VR installation, they went to the renowned Sundance Film Festival to search for content. The experience that most resonated with them was Wevr’s immersive underwater series, theBlu. Wevr and the NHM then collaborated to create a state-of-the-art VR installation at the museum’s temporary exhibit space.

For nearly 8 weeks in March and April, 2017, Wevr’s theBlu will be available to more than 5000 engaged museum-goers. And because of the positive response, the curation and marketing teams at NHM have already expressed interest in a future collaboration.

Design

Wevr and the Natural History Museum collaborated to create an environment that would both contextualize and compliment the VR experience.

The NHM built and art-directed the installation utilizing their own knowledge designing exhibits, while also leaning on Wevr’s festival and conference VR exhibition experience.

Because of NHM’s decades of exhibit design, and Wevr's years of showing VR at a host of events and venues across the globe, the collaboration produced a seamless and enjoyable VR experience for museum visitors.

Testing

In testing done prior to opening the exhibit, 63% of guests rated their overall satisfaction with the VR experience as “excellent”; 29% rated the experience “very good”; 4% rated it as “good,” and 4% as “poor.”

The majority (87%) of viewers expressed interest in participating in a VR experience again in the future.

A primary theme that emerged from the interviews was that the VR experience raised awareness of the beauty of the ocean, and increased guests' curiosity about specific ocean species—such as jellyfish, whales, and anglerfish.

Guests were also asked what they felt was the ideal price to pay for the VR experience. The average response was $8.
“We felt Wevr's content could really help museum-goers relate to our permanent exhibits. That’s why we jumped at the opportunity to create a pop-up VR exhibition in the Museum’s temporary exhibit gallery space. ”

- Neil Sadler,
NHM Creative Director,
Brand, Design & Digital
“I was really new to VR and I was pretty skeptical, but when I went to Sundance my mind was blown. The thing about the blu was that I am a scuba diver and it was actually so similar to that experience. I just thought it was much better than anything else there.”

- Jennifer Morgan,
Senior Project Manager

Opening event

The opening event of the Natural History Museum’s “theBlu: An Underwater VR Experience,” featured speeches from the NHM staff, as well as theBlu’s director, Jake Rowell. The event attracted a broad swath of press, receiving unanimously positive coverage in outlets ranging from VR-specific sites to general news stations and papers.

Selected Press

“Virtual reality is up to the tech-cool task, especially when Wevr, the Venice VR studio, is at the helm. The experience, which is is likely to tempt both VR enthusiasts and ocean lovers alike.” “The immersive adventure makes you feel like you are underwater, exploring the majesty of the ocean and its different habitats. Wevr’s team consulted with museum scientists during the making of theBlu to help inform the creative process. Visitors to theBlu: An Underwater VR Experience begin their journey in a lounge area inside the museum gallery space, where they are acclimated to the technology ahead amid glowing NHMLA ocean specimens on display and projections of reef footage. They’re then led into five “pods” in the gallery, and assisted as they put on HTC Vive virtual reality headsets. At a seating area nearby, friends and families can watch the action on a monitor that shows the user’s interactive underwater experience streaming in real time.”
“Take a virtual dive into the ocean. Swim alongside manta rays, angler fish and a blue whale—without ever getting wet—during the opening of "theBlu." This 6-minute virtual reality exhibition at the Natural History Museum allows visitors to immerse themselves in underwater scenes that take place anywhere from a whale skeleton to a school of bioluminescent fish.” “Curators and administrators at the NHMLA worked closely with designers from the VR firm Wevr to craft a three-episode encounter — the museum's first VR experience — within specially designed spaces. The collaboration not only mimics the feeling of being underwater as closely as possible, but also presents a series of narratives about the ocean's different environments and wildlife.”

Conclusion

The Natural History Museum’s “theBlu: An Underwater VR Experience” proves that Wevr’s VR stations are both an effective way to expose a larger audience to VR, and offers a groundbreaking case study for how similar institutions can utilize this powerful medium to broaden their communication capabilities.