For years, when we couldn’t go out and celebrate the new year with other people, we watched fireworks on TV. Whether you’re watching Dick Clark from Times Square or London’s fireworks over Big Ben, you’ve always limited yourself to watching the screen in front of you.
However, with the help of virtual reality, we can participate much more in the action and even meet people celebrating the whole world. While they’re not a huge choice for watching New Year’s Eve in VR, we’ve listed them for you right here.
BBC YouTube channel
Since 2016, the BBC has had a 360-degree video of fireworks on the River Thames looking at the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. It’s a fantastic show, and because it’s filmed with high-definition 360-degree cameras, you can look around and see huge crowds behind you.
The immersive feeling this gives is really quite special, everyone who sings Auld Lang Syne is especially touching and if you turn up the headphone volume you can really feel the fireworks above you.
VTIME
VTime is a virtual reality social app that allows you to create social spaces for communication. With this application, you can practically chat with your friends all over the world and enjoy the New Year together. Although you can’t watch the ball fall in VTime, you can enjoy the company of the people you like and sing Auld Lang Syne together.
VTime is free on Google Play and Oculus Store for Daydream, Oculus Go and Gear VR, but unfortunately there is no PlayStation VR app yet.
- Get VTime on Google Play
- Get VTime from the Oculus Store
ABC News VR New Year’s EVE swing
Last year, ABC News VR were gearing up to broadcast their entire New York New Years Eve party, and while we can’t find anything that specifically says they’ll do it in 2019, it looks like they will. As you can see from the video above, in New York the crowds are huge and the music plays for hours.
To do this, you should use a virtual reality VR app on almost any device that supports virtual reality and maybe have a drink or two while watching people dance from all sides. If you want to check out this video and just be there for the ball to drop, it starts at this point.
