West coasters are a lucky bunch, the growing popularity of virtual reality has brought forth plenty of great community gatherings to choose from—SVVR, VRLA, SFVR, and OCVR—just to name a few. Now, the East Coast is getting into the spirit. VR Philly will hold Philadelphia’s first public VR Meetup next week on July 2nd.

The East Coast VR community continues to grow. New Yorkers have a local VR chapter, Virtual Reality NYC, along with North Carolina’s RTP Virtual Reality Enthusiasts, and now the “City of Brotherly Love” can represent. The VR Philly Meetup, co-organized by Chad Jordan and Tyler Roach, two local VR developers and enthusiasts, is free and open to anyone interested in virtual reality, whether you’re an experienced developer or a total VR newbie. The Meetup will be attended by myself on behalf of Road to VR, and feature a number of Oculus Rift demo stations for the public to try, along with three presentations by guest speakers. The event details and schedule are listed below:

VR Philly is an open group for anyone interested in virtual reality in the Philadelphia area. Whether you’re a developer, artist, entrepreneur or just interested in VR, we encourage you to join and meet other like minded individuals. Please RSVP so we have an accurate headcount for refreshments. When: Wednesday, July 2nd, from 7:00 – 10:00 PM Where: Devnuts, a tech-oriented community center located in Northern Liberties. Their address is 908A N 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19123. Registration: Please join and RSVP on the VR Philly Meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/vrphilly/ Parking: Limited street parking should be available. Public transportation will be a more ideal option but not required. Special thanks to our media sponsor, Road to VR, for all of their assistance with our first meetup. The list of speakers for this event include: Ben Lang, Founder & Executive Editor of Road to VR How Virtual Reality Can Teach You to Fly: True Virtual Reality is about more than just visual immersion. Come with me on a thought experiment where using commercially available brainwave-reading devices, some interesting psychological tricks, and a haptic suit, you could fly free as a bird. Yuval Boger, CEO of Sensics The market evolution of VR goggles: The talk will discuss the evolving differences between professional-grade and consumer-grade VR goggles. It will cover the sources of innovation in the market and examine methods and opportunities for individuals/enthusiasts to make significant contributions to the VR “state of the art Daniel Hellerman, Local Game Developer Virtual Reality, Sculpting Worlds in 2014 + Beyond: Presenting on the future of VR. Daniel’s presentation examines what technologies are required for truly immersive experiences, how we got here, and what the future of Virtual Reality will be like.

Road to VR is a proud media sponsor of VR Philly!