青岛，我来啦！(Qingdao, here I come!)

When you see a title of mine written in Chinese, you already know what is going to happen. Yes, I am returning again to China. Yes, new adventures await me. Yes, my stomach won’t be that happy, but I am a lot.

I will depart my lovely Italy on Saturday, to attend the Sandbox Immersive Festival (SIF) in Qingdao, China. The Sandbox Immersive Festival is one of the biggest AR/VR events in the whole Asia: it is a big exhibition dedicated to immersive storytelling content and will feature top-notch creations from Chinese and Western people.

This year the festival will take place from June, 24th to June, 27th. Its theme will be “Immersive City”:

This year, SIF takes “Immersive City” as the theme word. When looking through the lens of SIF 2019, the city becomes a screen upon which you can gaze and reflect. With a deep dive into the fabric of the “Immersive City”, various chords from the strings of streets emerge, some harmonic, some rhapsodic. For those who immerse themselves in SIF (known as SIFers) the city becomes a conduit between reality and virtuality. Present and the future collide and collapse, laying bare the raw emotion of the city. SIF 2019’s doors are open!

(I haven’t understood properly what it does mean, but I guess it’s a description for creatives only 😀 )

The SIF will showcase 44 immersive projects, including 6 large-scale installations, 21 interactive experiences, 9 films and 8 VR films in 8K. Some of them have already been shown in other famous festivals like Tribeca, others are completely new. Some names that have caught my attention have been:

• The Collider (that has been highly appreciated at Tribeca)
• Game of Thrones: The Dead Must Die (GOT experience on Magic Leap)
• Buddy VR (winner of a prize at Venice Film Festival)
• Ello Echo
• Doctor Who: The Runaway
• Spheres (one of the first VR movies to be sold for millions of dollars)

And these just to name a few. If you want to read the full program, you can find it here or you can visit the official website to get in touch with the organizers.

I‘m incredibly excited, also because it will be the first festival all focused on immersive storytelling I will attend. And then it will be in Qingdao, that in my opinion has one of the most beautiful seasides I have ever visited in my life: it is both romantic and technological.

Then it will be the occasion to meet with some of my friends of the XR Story group in WeChat: Eloi, Joao, Gianluigi, and many others with which I discuss daily about VR! (BTW, if you want to join us, just let me know. It’s one of the best XR communities I am in)

I really want to thank the organizers Eddie Lou and Junhua Huang of Sandman Studios for having invited me as a media partner and for having helped me with travel and accommodation. They have been very kind and helpful, even if we had some hurdles in organizing everything.

And after that… I will head to Beijing because I want to meet a lot of other companies and people that are there! I’ve some big plans… but I don’t want to spoil anything for now.

Of course, I want to tell you everything about my adventures, exactly as I did when I went to Taipei. I want to make you feel as you were there with me. It’s just a pity that I can’t transmit the taste of Baozi through a blog post 😉

If you will be in China, let me know. I hope to meet you all! 😉