Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be electrocuted in an electric chair? Those attending the first SoCal Virtual Reality Conference and Expo Sunday could experience it in virtual form.

The free event at UC Irvine’s Institute for Innovation had demos, panels and giveways for the estimated 700 people in attendance.

Dylan Watkins, 32, the founder of Orange County VR brought together virtual reality enthusiasts and event coordinators from San Diego to San Francisco for the event.

“This is not only to inspire, but to create dialogue,” he said.

The electric-chair experience was one of many demos that took place at the expo.

“Watching people do it is good fun,” said David Green the creator of Warped Imagination and the electric chair experience, known as Old Sparky.

The culmination of many efforts, Old Sparky immerses the viewer into a virtual jail scene. Viewers wear a “KOR-FX” vest, enabling them to feel vibrations from every sound in the program. The electric chair lightly shocks the viewer.

This new style of gaming creates a new type of adrenaline rush, enthusiasts said Sunday.

“At the end of the day it’s an illusion. If you do it right, you can project reality,” founder and inventor of the KOR-FX vest Shahriar Afshar said.

There are many kinds of virtual reality, but one of the popular ones that made appearances throughout the event was mobile virtual reality. Mobile players slide a smartphone into the viewfinder and use an app for viewing purposes.

NextVR offered mobile video demos for those in attendance. Based in Laguna Beach, it has an app that will soon allow users to use virtual reality using a smartphone as a point of entry to attend live performances including sporting events and concerts.

“Virtual reality has come out from an eccentric community and has become more mainstream,” said Helen Situ, a marketer for NextVR.

Liv Erikson, 24, a “technical evangelist” at Microsoft, traveled from San Francisco for the event.

“Virtual reality is immersive computing. It’s experiencing computing in a way that feels more natural, intuitive and three-dimensional,” she said. “It’s an experience that’s around you, not just in front of you. When you work with websites, you see a product. When you work with virtual reality, you see a world.”

Kristen Kress, 30 of Aliso Viejo, is new to the virtual reality world. She creates graphic arts for video games and through that has met virtual reality enthusiasts.

Sunday’s expo was her first virtual reality event.

“I think it’s very exciting and fun to be given all these new ways to experience video games, travel and art,“ she said. “It‘s fun to feel like I’m in the beginning of a new technological era.”