Tempting ticket sales through virtual reality binoculars
SSGB virtual reality binoculars
The SS Great Britain Trust challenged Zubr to boost ticket sales, increasing visitor numbers using our signature VR binoculars.
With rising living costs, it’s vital that heritage visitors understand the full range of activities on offer so they can feel confident when purchasing their ticket. Following in the innovative footsteps of engineer and designer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the SS Great Britain’s curatorial and marketing teams wanted to showcase the visitor offering in a more immersive way than traditional video and web advertising.
After a successful Zubr VR binoculars installation to celebrate the 180th anniversary of the ship’s launch, SS Great Britain reached out to see how Zubr’s binoculars could be used to help visitors see beyond the paywall to the maritime adventures beyond.
Partners
This project was a collaboration between Zubr and the SS Great Britain Trust, kindly sponsored by Birketts.
Working with the Trust’s curatorial and marketing teams meant we could align the VR experience with their mission to bring Brunel’s legacy to life in exciting new ways. Their insight into the site’s visitor journey and storytelling needs fundamentally shaped our bespoke installation.
Binoculars built for Bristol
Zubr’s binoculars have been carefully designed for outdoor installations. Our weather resistant measures ensure they remain fresh and vibrant, the perfect medium to tempt passing families into peering through the lenses to discover the secrets of the SS Great Britain site.
The eye-catching blue branding coupled with the classic seaside binoculars design invites people to step up to see what surprises await through the lenses. Most people expect to see a zoomed in view of the harbour, and are delighted when they find the digital content waiting to be explored.
As the chosen location is a public square, surrounded by residential properties, we deliberately opted for a fully virtual experience with no live camera feed. We didn’t want anyone thinking people would be using our binoculars to peer through their windows! Nor did we want people to be disturbed by any noise, so this particular installation does not feature sound effects or music – although our binoculars generally support both.
From stereoscopic to spectacular
Many people passing Brunel’s SS Great Britain are unaware that a ticket inside unlocks more than the ship itself, so we developed a VR binoculars experience that showcases the different areas available to ticket-holders as a playful treasure hunt.
Our fantastic photographer Misha visited the site to take stereoscopic images of the ship and dockyard. When viewed through the lenses of Zubr’s binoculars, the stereoscopic photographs pop in 3D, creating the illusion that you are really looking at a live view of the ship instead of an image.
Adding further dimension to the scene, the SS Great Britain marketing team recorded enticing video snippets of the different areas available for visitors to explore onsite. Zubr’s team used these assets as the basis of the experience, adding ‘hotspots’ which trigger these videos when someone focuses the binoculars on them – offering a quick, tempting taste of what’s inside.
Letting visitor curiosity lead
In a world full of pop ups and ads, it’s refreshing to have a hands-on way to discover ‘what’s on’. Rather than forcing prospective visitors to browse through the different offerings, Zubr’s VR binoculars allow visitors to explore at their own pace, guided by their own interests.
Zubr’s binoculars are intuitive to use, with no complex instructions or controls to learn. Instead, the content is triggered through gaze-activation. This means the experience follows the user’s interests, instead of prescribing a certain path to them.
The view initially starts out as black and white, mimicking historic photography, but as visitors progress through the digital experience and unlock each area by triggering the videos, the different spaces become colourful. This encourages potential visitors to seek out every hotspot through the binoculars, before buying a ticket and exploring the site in person.
Peek first, pay later
Thanks to Zubr’s hardware, inquisitive tourists and potential SS Great Britain visitors can now get a sneak peak at the visitor offering in a hands-on and intuitive experience. We are proud that our virtual reality binoculars can do more than entertain, helping organisations to tell their stories in unexpected ways and encouraging new visitors right to their doors.