This weekend marks the launch of a new and unique festival.

This Saturday, Amsterdam will see the first ever virtual reality festival. Named “Zo Niet, Dan Toch” (Dutch for “If not, then anyway”), the festival promises to put “augmented reality and location-based virtual projects on the map.”

“The festival allows visitors a new way of experiencing visual arts, entertainment, film, architecture, theatre, dance and music,” the event says. “The festival explores the virtual stage where nothing is impossible and everyone has access. The ticket is already in your pocket: your mobile phone.”

Visitors can wander around the festival area in the north of Amsterdam and view various VR and AR works with their mobile phone. There are even guided iPad tours for those without a smartphone.

The festival was started by former Layar employee Klasien van de Zandschulp in collaboration with artist Sander Veenhof, whose Layar artwork you may have seen here on the blog before. Many of the festival’s projects have been built using the Layar Creator or Geo Layers.

One of the featured projects is “Pont,” a fun boat docking game developed by Layar developer Blaise Kal. Layar’s R&D lead Ronald van der Lingen will also be at the festival giving tours and demos of Google Glass.

The program for the event has been enhanced with Layar as well, including a special final page which allows for additional content, so the reader can keep reading. In one case, an exhibitor changed the location of her project, so the program was updated with the Layar Creator to show the correct information.

Looking to attend? Here’s everything you need to know…

DATE: September 7th, 2013
TIME: 13:00 to 21:00
SPECIAL EVENING PROGRAM: 18:00 to 21:00
LOCATION: Various locations in Amsterdam Noord - Info desk : Tolhuisweg 5

Make sure your bring your phone, charger and headphones!

Here at Layar, we like to stay busy creating new concepts, improving existing products, and sharing our hopes, dreams and coolest new endeavors with our community.

Some days we do all of these things at once—and last Thursday (Sept. 1) was one of those days.

First, we hosted a webinar for developers interested in the Creation Challenge, and had a great turnout! You can download the audio file for the September 1 Creation Challenge webinar as well as a PDF of the presentation here.

If you missed last week’s webinar, do not despair! We’re hosting another one, this time an Introduction to Layar Vision, this Friday, September 9. Register now!

After the webinar, we kicked off another Augmented Reality Thursday (ART), a monthly meetup we host to share news, exchange ideas and visions, and meet others interested in Augmented reality. 

Check out this video of last week’s ART presentations from Layar Co-founder and General Manager Maarten Lens FitzGerald, Layar Research and Development’s Michael Hofmann and renowned ARtist Sander Veenhof. These fellas show off some cool new Layar concepts!

On the first Thursday of the month, Layar hosts Augmented Reality Thursday (ART) at our headquarters here in Amsterdam. The objective of this monthly event is to inspire and update people about the current field of Augmented Reality and Layar’s position within it. 

Next to that, we want to connect developers, publishers, brands and (of course) our employees to exchange stories, visions and ideas. 

The setting is very informal (so NO chairs, long presentations or tea-breaks), and the event is free (plus, we supply the beer, wine and snacks) so it’s always a lot of fun! 

We took a short break from hosting ART this summer while bearing down on some exciting new projects, but we’re back with a vengeance on September 1!

Speaking of those “exciting projects,” this coming ART features an introduction by Layar Co-founder and General Manager Maarten Lens-FitzGerald as well as a presentation about the new Layar Vision beta from our R&D department’s Michael Hofmann. Also, just added to the lineup, ARtist Sander Veenhof will showcase one of his new projects, Augmentizer, that he recently introduced at the Lowlands Festival. Come check out the demos, ask questions, and tell us what you think!

After this (as we don’t like to hear ourselves talk and are very curious to hear what you are working on), we’ll resume asking the community to give a short presentation or two each month. If you’d like to present at one of our ART events, please drop us an email at events@layar.com. 

Cool demos, free booze and a chance to make some great connections—what are you waiting for?? RSVP now!

Layar’s favorite science fiction author and “Guardian Seer of Augmented Reality” Bruce Sterling has just crossed over into the Layar developer realm.

As “Visionary in Residence” at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Bruce felt the best way to inspire his students to create immersive AR experiences was to create one himself because, as he said, “Sometimes it’s easiest to teach by doing.”

Obviously an Augmented Reality visionary like Bruce Sterling wasn’t going to make a layer to find ATMs or restaurants, but little did we know his finished project would augment an underground, offline media network perfectly aligned with the tenets of AR!

Last week Bruce revealed the Dead Drops layer to the world through his blog, which enabled a new wave of discovery for Berlin-based media artist Aram Bartholl‘s Dead Drops project.

Dead drops are USB flash drives embedded into walls, buildings and curbs that are accessible to everyone and located in public space. Anyone can add to and take from a dead drop, or create their own and add its location to the website. The result of this project is an anonymous, offline peer-to-peer file sharing network.

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