The Clown
A fun ride in virtual reality — a 21st-century ghost train at the Vienna Prater.
"The Clown" is a virtual-reality (VR) ride at the Prater amusement park in Vienna. It follows the tradition of the "Geisterbahn" (literally "ghost train") or haunted ride. But instead of lights, sound effects and animatronics along the track, the whole experience happens in virtual reality.
You get into the first car in line, the friendly staff helps you put on the VR headset, and off it goes. It starts with a clown next to your train car and then … hm, nope — no spoilers. Come to Vienna and watch it yourself ;)
The 360° video was produced and the project is managed by Vrisch. Our tasks were synchronising the start of playback with the start of the ride, and developing a monitoring system for the playback. Using this monitoring-and-control system, staff can quickly detect problems and swap out headsets when there are issues.
In 2020 we began adapting the system for a more modern headset with better reliability and visual quality.