As the COVID-19 lock-down takes hold, a Stone businesswoman has teamed up with ALBOS to roll out FREE Virtual Reality Headsets to all 9643 households in Stone.
On Sunday A Little Bit of Stone hosted their second Facebook live Quiz, however, an initial technical issue and a copyright claim from Metallic’s record label saw the live stream interrupted. Playing along was successful Stone tech businesswoman Flair Polo, who’s great grandfather gave his surname to the “mint with a hole in it”, and Flair has agreed to become a supporter of ALBOS and to help us bring more free entertainment to our town.
Initially, we will be rolling out our online quiz to the free virtual reality headsets (VR), which usually cost £329, these will need to be paired with either an Android or iPhone based smartphone.
For this Sunday’s quiz that means that we can all to “appear” to be in one of Stone’s many quiz venues such as pubs, cafes or even left of field places like Stone Library or outdoors in the Market Square or the Amphitheatre.
The headsets will be delivered this week initially to the people who have marked themselves as interested or going on this week’s online quiz on Facebook -> ALBOS Online Quiz – Sunday 5th April 2020
It’s then hoped we can roll out the headsets to the entire town by 8th April, just in time for the Easter weekend and a special VR Easter Egg hunt!
From next week we’re increasing the content available, adding the ability for people to virtually “pop out” to the virtual pub where you can safely drink at home but “check-in” to your favourite Stone pub to see your friends and other regulars that you’re missing.
We are also working in partnership with three local restaurants who have shared their internal imagery so that you can “dine out” whilst ordering a takeaway for delivery to your home. Let’s bring back date night!
Children haven’t been forgotten either as the new ALBOS VR service will also offer virtual access to a number of Stone attractions. Imagine turning the trampoline in your back garden into one of the many at Flipout? How about using your climbing frame, ladders or even your stairs allowing you to recreate a virtual experience at Clip ‘n Climb?
Independent Travel Consultant Liz Anya, who specialises in Italian travel, will be adding virtual holiday escapes to a number of locations, initially these will be Rome, Southend on Sea and Scarborough but we hope to add more if there’s sufficient demand, please comment below destinations you’d like to see. Imagine sitting in your garden with your feet in your kids sandpit imaging you’re somewhere exotic?!
Ms Polo, CEO of Stone Reality Bitez Ltd, told A Little Bit of Stone:
“Stone is such a great town and I love what you’ve done to try and raise its spirits at this difficult time. My company has been creating virtual and mixed reality headsets for over 5 years, however, the recent lock down has got us excited about using the technology to bring people closer together.
The headsets are paired via Bluetooth and WiFi to your mobile phone and allow for us to create a powerful and immersive virtual reality experience.
A Little Bit of Stone will be a great testbed for this virtual community offering and by offering the headsets for free we are hoping to give back to the people of our great town.”
Jon Cook from A Little Bit of Stone said :
“I’m absolutely blown away by this kind offer from Flair. Despite her coming near the bottom of the previous two weeks quizzes she saw an opportunity to bring the town closer together.
We joked about me having to sing the intro to Under Pressure on the quiz on Sunday and have toyed with adding a Karaoke Room into the Stone Virtual Reality community….watch this space for more news but rest assured you won’t find me singing in there!”
We are really keen for the service to be as much use for people so please feel free to comment below with content you’d like to see us add? Organised pub crawls, gym/work out sessions, bingo, movie and book clubs, language lessons or cookery courses.
If you’re excited to get involved with the project then please contact our VR coordinator April via email april.fools@alittlebitofstone.com and we’ll be in touch ;)
