Awards Archive
Explore the rich history of the Academy’s XR Awards
A strong legacy of recognizing and celebrating outstanding achievement
Founded in 2017, for over 8 years the XR Awards has been crowning the XR industries greatest triumphs.
Our journey has taken our global celebration across physical and digital realms. Check out the best bits from every XR Awards show below.
7th International VR Awards
Rotterdam, 30th November 2023
After a successful event last year, we returned to Rotterdam for another spectacular live ceremony. This year’s highlight was an incredible performance by Brendan Bradley, captivating our audience with his immersive artistry.
The XR Lifetime Achievement Award was proudly presented to Dr. Myron W. Krueger. Dr. Krueger, a pioneer in virtual and augmented reality, received the award for his groundbreaking contributions to the XR field.
6th International VR Awards
Rotterdam, 1st December 2022
Our return to an IRL ceremony took us to Rotterdam in partnership with Immersive Tech Week. This was the first VR Awards live ceremony held outside of London, and our evening at de Doelen was a true representation of our mission to celebrate and champion the best in the global VR Community.
Our Accenture VR Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded to Dr. Jacquelyn Ford by Accenture’s Nicola Rosa. We were fortunate to have Dr. Morie in attendance, having flown out from the USA, to receive her award live at our de Doelen ceremony in what proved to be an emotionally powerful moment.
5th International VR Awards
Virtual (Covid), 18 November 2021
Our fifth anniversary show was distinctly reflective in tone, as we looked back on the growth of the VR industry. The ceremony took place in AltspaceVR, with five specially curated virtual worlds users could visit. The process of producing this virtual ceremony was highly technologically challenging, with a team of over 60 people working to produce this VR Awards ceremony.
In true VR Awards style, we chose not to accept the physical boundaries bestowed on us when it came to awarding our Accenture VR Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. We holoported Tom Furness into our ceremony world, wherin he delivered a speech to the gathered virtual audience.
4th International VR Awards
Virtual (Covid), 11 November 2020
COVID restrictions allowed us to fulfill the ambition of taking our ceremony online for a fully virtual event. We built an interactive experience in collaboration with VRChat which attracted 714 individual guests, with press coverage reaching approximately 77,615,950 people across digital media.
Our second Accenture Lifetime Achievement Award went to HTC founder Cher Wang. Represented in our ‘VRChat’ world, Cher was recognised in particular for her exceptional contribution towards a holistic VR ecosystem and for creating an engineering powerhouse in HTC ahead of the ubiquity of smartphones.
3rd International VR Awards
London, 11 November 2019
Our third VR Awards, once again at 8 Northumberland Avenue, crowned the Quest by Oculus as our coveted VR Hardware of the Year winner. We also saw an exclusive premiere of the much awaited VR game, Doctor Who: Edge of Time.
Our third VR Awards saw the inauguration of the Accenture Lifetime Achievement Award. Recipients from 2018 included John Carmack, Inner Space VR, Meta and many more who all took to the stage for the VR Award’s largest in person show to date.
2nd International VR Awards
London, 16 October 2018
Our second VR Awards ceremony returned to 8 Northumberland Avenue. Host Phil Wang took us through proceedings, including the inaugral VR Social Impact Award, won by VISYON & The Cornerstone Partnership.
Our second VR Awards saw us collaborate with AltspaceVR for the first time, as we provided a unique, entertaining and interactive experience which allowed people from all across the world to attend the VR Awards through the power of virtual reality. A sign of things to come perhaps…
1st International VR Awards
London, 9 October 2017
The first ever VR Awards took place at 8 Northumberland Avenue, as we played host to over 300 international delegates. Google & Oculus proved to be big winners, as they went home with not one, but two awards each.
Our live entertainment stole the show! Anna Zhilyaeva, a talented artist from Paris, orchestrated an innovative art piece utilising Google Tilt Brush with a musical accompaniment from London-based ZHL strings, who choreographed a condensed 15 minute performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
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