Meet Arcade at CogX 2022

Arcade is pleased to announce that we have been invited to take part in CogX 2022, with co-founder and CSO Alex Book participating in a panel discussion led by Digital Catapult on Wednesday 15th June at 9am in Kings Cross.

Having been named as ‘Ones to Watch’ by CogX in 2019 and 2020, it is an honour to be joining the festival – and London Tech Week in general – as a contributor in 2022.

Alex will be on a panel chaired by Jeremy Silver, CEO at Digital Catapult, alongside Suhair Khan, Chair, Studio Wayne McGregor, and Ben Timmons, Director of Business Development at Qualcomm Europe.

If you would like to attend, CogX have kindly offered complimentary passes to Arcade’s network. Simply visit the booking page hier and enter promo code COGX2022SPEAKER1.

Alex Book Presenting at Createch
Alex Book presenting at CogX in 2019

Keeper of Paintings Nominated for an Auggie

Auggir Awards logo (AR Awards)

Just a couple of weeks after its launch at The National Gallery in London, The Keeper of Paintings and the Palette of Perception has received its first award nomination. The immersive game created for, and in collaboration with, 7-11 year olds and their families is up for ‘Best in Location-Based Entertainment’ at the prestigious Auggies, run by AWE.

Voting is open to the public until May 5th, and you can register here to vote for The Keeper of Paintings and any of the other incredible immersive experiences across 15 categories.

Find out more about The Keeper of Paintings hier, and book your ticket to play the game for free at The National Gallery hier!

Children and Augmented Reality Characters in the National Gallery

Get in touch to find out more

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The Hundred Avatars Wins Fan Engagement Award

The prestigious Broadcast Sport Awards took place at London’s Park Lane, and on a very special night for The Hundred, Sky Sports and the entire Avatar team, The Hundred Avatars was victorious in several categories. Of greatest excitement for Arcade was the win in ‘Best Use of Fan Engagement’, which rewarded experiences that ‘put fans at the centre of the action like never before’.

The Hundred Avatars were designed to give fans the chance to ‘Meet the Heroes’ of The Hundred in immersive augmented reality, and marks the first time motion captured avatars have been presented to sports fans at this kind of scale anywhere in the world.

Our thanks go to our partners Sky Sports and the England & Wales Cricket Board for having the courage and belief to invest in this kind of cutting edge innovation, and to Dimension Studio for working tirelessly to produce the 3D avatars themselves, ready for us to offer up to fans via The Hundred and Sky Sports apps, and in WebAR via 8th Wall.

We were thrilled that Sky Sports also won for ‘Best Sports Graphics for a Live Production’, and received the Broadcast Sport Special Recognition award for everything Sky has done for cricket.

To Meet the Heroes yourself download The Hundred app, or visit our 8th Wall project on mobile.

Read The Case Study

The Hundred Avatars

Munch Named As Finalist In Digital Catapult Awards

We are thrilled that MunchMunch, the immersive arts platform for schools, has been nominated as one of three finalists in the ‘Responsible & Ethical Tech Pioneer’ category at the Digital Catapult Awards 2021.

Digital Catapult is the UK’s leading advanced digital technology centre, and one of the loudest and most important voices in supporting and promoting the UK tech industry. They identified Arcade as a future leader as early as 2018, appointing us to their Augmentor programme that year, and have continued to be supportive advocates for us and the entire immersive landscape in the UK.

In early 2020 we were invited to pitch for an incredibly exciting project in which the winning SME would partner with Digital Catapult and Norway’s Munch Museum to create a new immersive tool for schools inspired by the works and artistic philosophies of iconic artist Edvard Munch.

The result was MunchMunch, a fun, exciting creative platform designed for kids aged 7-11 to express themselves in entirely new ways. With MunchMunch, they can take their creations from 2D paper into 3D augmented reality and engage with the physical spaces around them in ways that, we think, Edvard Munch himself would have approved.

The awards ceremony is on November 17th, and you can find out more about the Digital Catapult Awards hier.

Read The Case Study

MUNCHMUNCH

MunchMunch shortlisted for Art Explora Award

MunchMunch, the innovative creativity platform for school children, has been shortlisted as one of 30 potential winners of the hugely prestigious Art Explora Award.

Created in partnership with Oslo’s Munch Museum and Digital Catapult, MunchMunch is a creative and entertaining mobile application for Norwegian school children, aged between 9-11. It will inspire students to engage with Munch’s unique way of thinking and creating, by combining analogue and digital elements. The experience will consist of a digital tutorial, followed by an analogue drawing exercise. By transferring the drawing into an AR view, the user is able to place the drawing in their own surroundings and to continue working on its expressions with effects only made possible by digital means.

The award ceremony and announcement of the winning projects will take place on December 3rd. Learn more about Art Explora and tune in for the awards here: https://artexplora.org/en/the-2020-edition-of-the-art-explora-academie-des-beaux-arts-european-award/

The Vixen Wins!

A Vixen's Tale Poster

Congratulations to the Vixen’s Tale team and our client Welsh National Opera, on picking up a Bronze award in the highly competitive and prestigious Creativepool Annual 2020! Entered into the ‘Wave’ category for innovation, the judges loved A Vixen’s Tale‘s mixed physical and digital experience, and the way the augmented reality presented such an expected face for opera.

A Vixen’s Tale launched to the public in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff late last year. During its first three weeks the installation welcomed 5,939 recorded visitors during the opening hours alone, with over 80% of groups including younger audiences – a key metric of success for WNO.

A Vixen’s Tale has been shortlisted for several awards, and was selected for inclusion in the Creative Review Annual as well as Creativepool’s Annual 2020.

“We are so proud of our little Vixen,” said Simon Hobbs, Arcade Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer, “she just keeps going and going and we’re praying she has the chance to get out into the world again soon.”

A Vixen’s Tale was due to be installed at London’s Southbank Centre in May and potentially embark on an international tour, but plans have had to be put on ice for now because of the pandemic.

The win for A Vixen’s Tale follows success at Creativepool in 2019, where Arcade won with Roxy the Ranger, created for SEA LIFE’s London Aquarium.

Read more about A Vixen’s Tale hier, and SEA LIFE’s Roxy hier.

To find out more about Arcade and our award-winning work, please get in contact.

Arcade Creative Pool Awards
Arcade's 'Roxy the Ranger', created for SEA LIFE's London Aquarium, won at Creativepool in 2019

Arcade named as Createch Ones to Watch

For the second year running, Arcade has been named amongst the UK’s leading creative technology businesses by the Creative Industries Council.

Createch, the annual creative industries conference, this year partnered with the CogX Global Leadership Summit and hosted a stage and the all-virtual three-day event. As one of the ‘Ones to Watch’, Arcade was invited to set up a virtual booth throughout the event, and took part in many of its fascinating presentations.

During the event, Arcade revealed its exciting partnership with MUNCH and Digital Catapult.

Arcade CEO Jon Meggitt said, “We are thrilled to have been recognised by the Creative Industries Council in this way, and couldn’t be prouder to be representatives of the UK creative technology sector in such an exciting, high profile event.”

Janet Hull, CIC Createch Organiser and Marketing Director at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, said of the honoured organisations: “These inspiring examples of next generation businesses are testament to the ingenuity of so many UK creative entrepreneurs. They are our future leaders. Createch 2020 100 Ones to Watch at CogX is the ideal platform from which to promote their reputation on the global stage.”

Arcade named amongst GB’s leading creative industries entrepreneurs

Arcade founders Jon Meggitt, Simon Hobbs and Alex Book are delighted to have been identified as one of 15 creative industries ‘ones to watch’ in 2020 by Great British Entrepreneurs. Working in conjunction with Starling Bank, Great British Entrepreneurs run a portfolio of products, events and initiatives designed to support entrepreneurs and their ventures, including producing lists of leading entrepreneurs in Britain, across multiple different industries.

Arcade co-founders (from L-R): Alex Book, Jon Meggitt, Simon Hobbs

“It’s always nice when hard work is recognised,” said Arcade CEO, Jon Meggitt. “When you’re focused on building a business, especially in an emergent space like immersive technology, it’s easy to fixate on the challenges and lose sight of the accomplishments we’re making every day. Thanks to Great British Entrepreneurs and Starling Bank for reminding us that we’re doing a decent job, and congratulations to all the other creative industries entrepreneurs out there, both on this incredible list and beyond.”

Arcade becomes Founder Member of Immerse UK

Man Enjoying an Immersive Experience

Arcade is honoured and privileged to join some of the country’s most illustrious names in immersive technology as Founder Members of the new and evolved Immerse UK.

Over the past three years, Immerse UK has established itself as the UK’s leading membership organisation dedicated to supporting those developing, creating and embracing immersive technologies, with over 4000 active members.

Fiona Kilkelly, Head of Immerse UK said, “We are very excited about the next growth stage of Immerse UK.  Our support from Innovate UK over the last 3 years has been instrumental in helping us develop a good foothold in the industry and understand what the industry really needs to help it grow and develop on an international scale.   We have a strong network of Founder Members and a supportive network of partners who will help us deliver a membership network that is designed for the industry by the industry.”

Sol Rogers, Chair of Immerse UK commented, “The UK is steaming ahead in the area of immersive technology and we need organisations such as Immerse UK to help us cement our position as a world leader in this space. Immerse UK has shone a light on the exceptional talent that is developing in the UK and is helping it grow through identifying opportunities and connecting the industry as a whole. Immerse UK also has the ability to lobby government to support this high growth industry.”

As a Founder Member, Arcade sits alongside many of the most prestigious organisations in the immersive tech landscape: Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Innovation, AMRC, BAE Systems, CAMERA at University of Bath, Digital Catapult, Epic Games, Factory 42, Imagination, InnovationRCA, HVM Catapult, HTC Vive, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Microsoft, National Theatre, Pre-Loaded , PWC, REWIND, Royal Holloway, Royal Shakespeare Company, Sheridans, Sublime, Unity and University of York.

Along with our fellow Founder Members and the thousands of Immerse UK partners, we look forward to lending our voice and experience to helping lead the UK immersive tech industry forwards.

Arcade selected as a Creative Industries Council ‘One To Watch’

Creative Industries Flag
Arcade named as one of Createch's 'Ones to Watch'

We are delighted to have been selected as one of 50 UK companies at the forefront of creativity and technology. According to the CIC, “The report reflects the UK’s strong international reputation in both technology and creative fields, with the government estimating that global companies plan to invest at least £1.2bn in UK technology.”

“Compiled by innovation specialists Springwise with support from London & Partners, Digital Catapult and the GREAT campaign, ‘Ones to Watch’ features examples of how creative and tech expertise can combine to transform products, services, and experiences.”

CIC Co-Chair and BBC Studios CEO Tim Davie said, “The publication of the ‘Ones to Watch’ report provides outstanding examples of companies of all sizes from across the country who are breaking new ground in this area and changing our lives.”

Arcade’s work with SEA LIFE, Madame Tussauds and Roald Dahl was used to demonstrate our focus on creating transformational experiences that connect people more meaningfully to place.

Alex Book Presenting at Createch

CSO Alex Book presented a showcase of Arcade’s work at Createch 2019 to an audience of over 400 UK and overseas digital industry professionals from the private and public sectors, and was joined on the bill by many notable speakers including Margot James, Minister of State for Digital and Creative Industries, Facebook’s Christina Weaver Jackson, Bill Bush from the Premier League and Dr Jeremy Silver, CEO of Digital Catapult.