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Today\u2019s guest, location-based VR expert Bob Cooney, has been in the XR space since the early 1990s. He drops by the show to give Alan an update on all the newest tech advances he saw at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo, and explains how today is the most exciting time to be working in this industry.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlan: Welcome to the XR for\nBusiness podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today\u2019s guest is\nalways on the bleeding edge of technology. He\u2019s able to predict both\ntech and business trends. Bob Cooney is widely considered one of the\nworld\u2019s foremost experts on location based virtual reality, and the\nauthor of the book \u201cReal Money from Virtual Reality.\u201d I\u2019m\nreally super excited to introduce my good friend and colleague, Bob\nCooney to the show. Welcome, Bob.\n\n\n\nBob: Oh, dude, I\u2019m so happy to\nbe here. Thanks for having me, Alan.\n\n\n\nAlan: It\u2019s my absolute pleasure.\nIt\u2019s been a long time coming, this interview. But we\u2019re here. We\u2019re\nexcited. And we just are coming off the heels of *the* major North\nAmerican show, IAAPA \u2014 which for those of you listening and you\nhaven\u2019t been there \u2014 it\u2019s basically Disney World for VR, AR, and\nout-of-home experiences. You were there. Let\u2019s talk about what you\nsaw, and what are the trends coming in out-of-home entertainment.\n\n\n\nBob: Yeah, it\u2019s an amazing show.\nI\u2019ve been going this\u2013 I think this is my 27th IAAPA or something\nlike that. And my first one was 1991. And over the last four or five\nyears we\u2019ve seen VR every year just grow in not only the number of\ncompanies bringing VR/AR solutions into the market \u2014 mostly VR at\nthis point \u2014 but the quality is every year measurably increasing.\nAnd that\u2019s the thing I think that has me so excited is three or four\nyears ago there was just a literally handful of things that you would\neven remotely consider as an operator. And last year there was\nconfusion now, because there was\u2013 you were starting to see a lot of\ngood stuff and this year it was just overwhelming. And so, yeah,\nwe\u2019ve seen real quality come into the market.\n\n\n\nAlan: You\u2019ve seen pretty much\neverything there is out there. What\u2019s one thing that blew your mind\nthis year?\n\n\n\nBob: Good question. The rise of\nunattended virtual reality systems. There was a company called LAI\nGames, which has been around for decades. They\u2019re based out of Asia.\nThey build arcade games. And a couple of years ago, they took a\nlicense from Ubisoft: Raving Rabbids, which is a really popular IP.\nThey merged it with a D-Box motion base and they created a VR ride\nfor family entertainment centers, arcades, and theme parks. It\u2019s a\ntwo player ride. It was fairly cost effective, but they recommended\nit be operated without an attendant, and it was the first VR\nattraction that came out where you didn\u2019t need to staff it. And the\nprofitability of that really made a big difference for operators. And\nnow this year there was another company called VRsenal, that had an\narcade game cabinet with\u2013 that was a VR based that was unattended,\nand it was running Beat Saber, which is obviously one of the most\npopular games out there. And so we\u2019re starting to see companies\nrealize that maybe we don\u2019t need attendants. Maybe people are smarter\nthan we give them credit for. Maybe they can figure out how to put a\nheadset on their face. Maybe they will clean it by themselves if they\ncare about that. And so I talk about a lot about the four-minute\nmile, once it was broken. People thought was impossible, people\nthought if you try to run a four-minute mile, you would die. And once\nit was proven that it could be done, hundreds of people have done