My experience at AWE Europe and a comparison with the US chapter

I’ve just come home after my trip to Vienna to attend AWE Europe. Many people asked me about my experience with the event and especially what are its differences with the US version, so I thought it could be worth writing a little post about it.

AWE is one of the best XR events out there

I don’t want to make a classification, but for sure AWE (Augmented World Expo) is one of the top worldwide XR events. This year is its 15th edition and this proves how its founders, and in particular the big boss Ori Inbar, were very passionate about AR and VR even before it was cool. AWE now has three big editions, one in the US, one in Europe, and the other in Asia. In every one of its chapters, it attracts thousands of visitors and exhibitors, not only from the country it is hosted in but from all over the world. And in every edition of the event, there are always many interesting companies participating, like Meta, Snap, etc…

Every time I have been to AWE, I’ve always had an interesting experience, for the people I met, the hardware I tried, and also the parties I attended. It’s for sure one of the places to be if you are deep into the XR space. This time I was in Vienna was no exception: I’ve hugged many friends, made new connections, tried new crazy hardware, and also had my speech which helped with my personal brand. Outside the event, I had a fun bowling night with the XR community sponsored by Pico and a fun dinner with some XR friends. I had the occasion of visiting the Cyberith offices in Vienna and try again the Virtualizer 2. The only big problem has been that the last night I was taken to eat Italian pizza in Vienna, creating a diplomatic accident between our two countries

I am very thankful to the AWE team (Ori, Sonya, Andrea, Gupi, Geta, Sam, Andrea, and all the other amazing people) for organizing the event and giving me also the opportunity to be a speaker.

A Tech&Business event

If you have never attended an AWE event and you’re wondering what are its main topics, I would say that they are technology and business. It’s an event where you can discover new hardware and accessories, meet hardware providers, and meet XR solution providers for B2B needs. There are also innovation managers, tech analysts, business analysts, developers, XR hobbyists. Of course it’s also a place full of XR startuppers and with a few XR investors. And on the press side, you for sure meet people from the various XR magazines.

What you mostly won’t find is games. I mean, there are a few, but since the event is mostly technical or B2B oriented, it is not very appealing for VR game developers. I have been speaking to a few of them during this year, and they seem to favor more game-related events like GDC or Gamescom. It is not by chance that this year’s Gamescom has been huge for VR gaming thanks to a dedicated House of XR mega booth.

Doing business within VR people

One of the biggest downsides of AWE and all the other similar events in general is that it is an event where it’s not easy to do VR business. Most exhibitors, speakers, and attendees are XR people, so there is a big room to do business if you are selling something to VR professionals (e.g. if you are Unity or Meta) and little room to do business if you are providing services to non-VR companies (e.g. if you are a VR consultancy company).

I am currently operating as a VR consultant, both on the development and business sides, and for me it was almost impossible to get any gig at AWE. Just on the AWE show floor, there were at least 10 companies proposing their VR development services, how could I meet someone and say “Hey, I’m the 11th person to tell you today, but I can do XR projects for you”. Not to mention the fact that most people I met, even outside the expo, were other people doing my same job, so the dialogues were like “I provide XR services” with the other person saying “You know what, me too” and then we just started crying on each other’s shoulder about the current not-so-happy situation of XR.

If you have a booth, some innovation manager of some company attending the event may stop and ask you for information so you may do some business. But if you’re an XR solution provider and you are just going around the event, it’s most probable that you find possible partners or friends, but not customers. For them, you have to go to an event that is not only about VR, so you find people who need VR people to collaborate with.

Hands-on cool hardware

Every time I attend AWE, I’m able to try new and interesting hardware. In the US, for instance, I was able to put my hands on the new Sony headset (I still have to write my review here). While in Europe, I’ve just tried the MeganeX Superlight 8K, XPANCEO contact lenses, and Snap Spectacles (I’ll write a hands-on article about them on Monday, so stay tuned!). As a tech guy, this is always very exciting. As a tech lead/CTO, this helps me in getting a grasp of where the industry is going. As a blogger, this is an opportunity to inform the community about the new exciting products coming to the market. This is for me very valuable.

The EU version is smaller than the US one

Let’s get straight to the pain point of AWE Europe: it is much smaller than the US version. There are fewer exhibitors, fewer sponsors, fewer visitors, fewer… everything. It is like its smaller brother. This is not the organizers’ fault, they have put a lot of effort into this edition, too, it is just a reflection of the reality of the fact that currently virtual reality is very US-centric. Most of the most important XR brands (just to mention two: Meta and Qualcomm) are US-based, and the biggest XR market is the US. If you speak with XR content creators, they will tell you that 50-80% of revenues come from US sales alone.

Let me show you a small example of the difference in importance in the various ecosystems: for me, it’s pretty staggering that if you take the top 11 sponsors of AWE Europe, only one (Tropos AR) is a European company, and it is “just” a Silver sponsor. The top 3 sponsors of this event have actually been three associations related to the development of the culture and technology of Hong Kong. This is very telling about where money in technology is at this moment (US and China).

The result is an event where you feel like many important people are missing, also because US players are not traveling to the EU unless they have a valid reason to do so (e.g. they are launching a new product here). When I participated in the press tour of the expo area at this AWE Europe, there was not a big crowd, and of the people there, I could not find many famous XR content creators, not even the European ones like Cas&Chary, Tyriell Wood, Nathie, David Heaney, etc… I admit it’s been very strange because actually there were interesting XR gadgets to try for which it would have been valuable for them to participate.

The current situation is that AWE US is still the most important place to be. I hope that the European XR ecosystem is going to grow in the next few years so that to have a more leveled situation.

EU people and EU discussions

On the positive side, at AWE Europe you can meet XR European professionals who can not afford to go to the US. So it’s a good way to connect to the European XR community and XR startups. It’s a good way to understand what is happening in Europe, what are the needs of European companies, and understand better this market.

In the last few years, Europe has been trying to have its own tech identity and to promote more technological development. But developing this needs time and currently, there are many words about it, but the facts are scarce. This was a common theme of discussion also this year between the attendees at AWE: in particular there is a problem in finding big funds for XR in EU. One clear example of it is Lynx’s Stan Larroque, who claimed to have found the money he needed only recently and only in the US.

Another topic of discussion this year at AWE was about the EU regulations. GDPR and the AI Act are very good things on paper because they aim to promote a technology that preserves the basic rights of citizens. But at the same time, these regulations hinder innovation and create many problems, especially for small startups. The recent block of AI features from Meta and Apple in the European Union can be a double-edged sword: on one side, it may make the EU lag behind the US because EU citizens get toned-down experiences, while on the other side, they may foster the growth of EU-based AI companies that can grow in a space where the US tech giants are not entering. It was interesting having these debates during the event, both informally between us attendees in the corridors of the event, or more formally on the stage of the event (e.g. in an interesting panel moderated by Andrea Bravo). I think AWE EU has been a good place where to hear about these topics that are very relevant at this moment, not only in Europe but all over the world.

When in Rome do as the Romans

Since my last two paragraphs were about EU vs US, I’ll tell you a little anecdote. In the US it is pretty common to have a little small talk with basically everyone you interact with, while in Europe this is not happening, usually a “Hello” is sufficient. The second day I arrived at the venue in Vienna, I decided to go in with an American attitude: to the girl who was scanning the QR codes in front of the doors of the main stage, I smiled and enthusiastically said “Hey, hello, so how is it going today?”. She looked at me and said “Yes”.

That was the moment that I understood that maybe it’s better to just say “Hello” when I am around my home country…

My successful speech

My most positive note of this AWE has been having my talk about “true mixed reality”. I was in the same time slot as Pico and Andy Fidel, so I thought the room would have been so empty that I could have heard the echo of my voice when I was speaking. Actually, the room was so full of people, that someone had even to stay standing to attend it. I was surprised and happy. I delivered my talk in front of many people smarter than me like Cyril Tuschi or Lucas Martinic and it seems that people even enjoyed it. It’s been a very happy moment for me, this alone worth the trip (together with the photo of me and the VR hog in the header of the article…).

I hope to have given you some insights to understand better how my experience at AWE EU has been and if this is something that may interest you for the upcoming years. If you liked the post, as usual, share it with your peers on social media and subscribe to my newsletter so as not to lose my next one (about the Snap Spectacles).