A Digest of Virtual Market 2022 Summer, the World’s Largest VR Event

HIKKY Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Yasushi Funakoshi) held the world's largest VR event*, Virtual Market 2022 Summer, on the Metaverse from August 13 to August 28, 2022.As the eighth Virtual Market (commonly known as Vket) so far, about 60 companies/IPs and 540 exhibitors participated.

Over the course of 16 days, the event recorded the largest number of visitors of 1.16 million from around the world in a total of 26 venues, including 2 corporate venues, 20 general venues, and 4 corporate browser (Vket Cloud) venues.

With the recent boom in the Metaverse and the increasing popularity of Meta Quest 2, the result shows that the Metaverse is becoming more and more prevalent in our lives.

Virtual Market 2022 Summer started at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 13th JST. Immediately after the opening, many Tweets showed voices of excitement which amounted to about 15,000 Tweets on the first day and Vket became a trending topic in Japan.

Not only Vket fans, but also many of those who are new to Vket shared their experience on social media. As a result, the total number of Vket-related Tweets increased by about 1.5 times compared to the previous event.

As a feature of this year's Virtual Market, many companies held events where people can actively participate.

The following are some examples:

JR West Group implemented a lot of content that linked the Real Osaka Station and the Virtual Osaka Station. On August 22nd, at Toki-no-Hiroba Plaza in JR Osaka Station, there were live comedy performances by Yoshimoto Kogyo's popular comedians “Akina,” “Mitorizu,” and “ZAZY.” Yamana from the comedy duo “Akina” and Moriyama from the comedy duo “Mitorizu” put on VR goggles on stage and held an event in the Virtual Osaka Station with 23 people who passed the preliminary application.

In addition, The group opened a collaboration cafe with the popular VTuber unit “Parallel Walker” at Real Osaka Station for a limited time during the Vket period.  Popular VTuber groups “Yukan Kissa Animare” and “HoneyStrap” also held various events such as ad takeover at both real and virtual Osaka Station.

Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Store exhibited the virtual Daimaru Matsuzakaya at Parareal New York. They created two employee avatars and actually stood at the virtual store to serve customers. In addition, they hired 15 part-time staff on the Metaverse, and during the Vket period, they served the visitors.

The avatar service increased the amount of time spent communicating with visitors, leading to the acquisition of new fans and the increase of sales.

BEAMS employees held a virtual customer service which gets great reviews every time. This time, it was carried out by 50 people, including the staff members from the store in Osaka. In addition, BEAMS held the first virtual shop event on August 20th as a tie-up project with the popular VR event "Real Clothes Rally" (commonly known as "Riakuro Gathering") where users can gather and enjoy realistic avatar fashion. A total of about 100 participants gathered in their unique fashion, and they participated with the BEAMS staff members in a lively fashion talk that transcended the boundaries between real and virtual.

A Metaverse event called “Metavice” was held, where visitors could ask for advice to employees who are investment experts of SMBC Nikko Securities. Questions about the current economy and investment methods, such as “Which is better, Japanese stocks or U.S. stocks?" were discussed. One participant showed their content by saying "I was interested in investing, but it takes a lot of courage to ask a securities company, so I'm glad I was able to casually talk to a professional about investment on VR."

On August 20th, Mizuho Bank invited the actor Akiyoshi Nakao and the VTuber Hiyoko Mochi as guests for a roundtable discussion by Mizuho Bank employees. Passionate discussions were made by the participants on three themes: asset formation, market, and content industry. One of the participants commented, "It was a rare and valuable experience to be a part of a discussion on the future of the content industry etc."

Komi Hirose's Metaverse LIVE was held at the JVC KENWOOD Corporation booth. Hirose's avatar was created and YouTube live distribution with fans was also carried out on Hirose's official channel.

Belc CO., LTD. presented collaboration videos with a comedy duo “Time Machine 3 Go” and Alpine Electronics Marketing, Inc. also made a collaboration video with a comedian “Hanawa.” A Vket introduction video was also streamed by “Akagami no Tomo” who had their own booth.

HIKKY believes that these efforts enable us to reach out to new audiences who are yet to be familiar with Metaverse and Virtual Markets.

Collaboration events with various communities within VRChat are also held every time in Virtual Market. These are some of the most exciting events:

The VRC Boxing Tournament Vket2022 Summer Cup was held on August 21 as a collaboration with the VRC Boxing Tournament, an organization that manages boxing tournaments in VR space. VRC Boxing is a boxing game where you actually move your body and fight in VRChat. 20 contestants who had been training daily for the tournament gathered and a serious battle unfolded in the ring. The tournament was streamed live for anyone to experience the heat of the battle.

On August 23rd, the collaboration event called “Team Competition! Battle Disk R4 Vket Community Cup” was held by the Japanese community Battle Disk Federation. Battle Disc is a renowned e-sports within VRChat and a popular competition where teams of players throw discs at each other to determine who wins or loses. In this event, the players were divided into teams of four and competed against each other. Multiple groups active on VRChat participated and streamed the event, resulting in many people joining with guests such as VTubers.

As a collaboration project with Hotel Kadesh, a popular Western-movie-themed role-playing group active on VRChat, a special exhibition hall for Hotel Kadesh was set up in the general exhibition venue, Kowloon Empire Ichiban Boulevard. This is one of the largest exhibitions for a community collaboration project. Past footage and items used in events were exhibited, as well as photo contests and guided tours, making it possible for many people to join.

Virtual Market 2022 Winter will be held for a total of 16 days from December 3rd (Sat) to 18th (Sun), 2022.

This year's corporate venues will be in three cities: (1) Sapporo, which is Japan's winter city; (2) Nagoya, which is the first city in the Tokai area; and the first overseas city from Europe, (3) Paris, the capital of France. We will expand.

By reproducing a real city on the Metaverse and making it “parareal,” we can achieve the co-creation of the real world and virtual space that are not bound by the concept of time and distance. In addition, in relation to the theme of this event, “NEXT Journey,” we are planning to produce a production that uses plenty of elements of departure and travel.Please look forward to the next event!

Virtual Market 2022 Winter Official Website: https://winter2022.vket.com/

HIKKY has released "Introduction to Metaverse Business for Companies," which summarizes the examples of business initiatives in the Metaverse.

You can download it for free by entering the required information at the URL below.

White paper: Download Link

The worlds from Vket2022 Summer will be made public on September 23th!

Those who haven't been to Vket2022 Summer during the event period will be able to easily access the venues.

How to access the venue: https://summer2022.vket.com/en/access

HIKKY Co., Ltd. is a VR firm that creates an open metaverse where anyone can create and access freely. With notable creators who lead the industry as our members, HIKKY provides VR services such as highly unique Metaverse solutions "Vket Cloud", plan and operate Metaverse events, and provide consulting services that support business entry into the VR/AR field. HIKKY aims to develop the living, economic, and cultural spheres of the virtual world and create a society where all creative people can live more freely and abundantly.

The world's largest VR event "Virtual Market" hosted by HIKKY has acquired a Guinness World Record™ in 2021. In addition, HIKKY won first place in the marketing category of the "AIXR International VR AWARDS" and the highest award in Japan's "XR CREATIVE AWARD 2020".

CEO: Yasushi Funakoshi

Headquarters: 4F, Mitomi Building, 1-20-22 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0013, Japan

Established: May 1, 2018

URL：https://www.hikky.co.jp/