Eight years with Amusement Expo helped build the community. The LEXRA Summit in Austin, August 2-5, kicks off the next chapter.

By Bob Cooney  •  Founder of the original VR Arcade and Attraction Summit; Founder and Executive Director, LEXRA

Eight years ago, I started something crazy. The VR arcade game business was a mashup of technology companies learning retail entertainment, arcade game manufacturers integrating consumer technology, passionate hobbyists running bootstrapped arcades, and sophisticated FECs trying to make sense of it all. And I realized that none of those groups were talking to each other. 

We needed somewhere to be in the same room. So I approached Pete Gustafson, Executive Vice President of AAMA, with an idea. “Let me program a full day of VR education at Amusement Expo.” A year and a half later, the first edition of what became known as The Summit surprised everyone, even me. The room was highly engaged, and standing room only for Brent Bushnell’s closing session. 

“Real life has the best haptics. Some of them can even kill you!” – Brent Bushnell at the inaugural Summit 

That first year was mostly Family Entertainment Center owners and amusement route operators curious about this new technological wave, along with a handful of VR arcade owners and suppliers scattered throughout the audience. Last year, during our seventh Summit (we took a year off during COVID), we had a room packed with attendees who primarily came just for the Summit. Some traveled from as far away as Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. 

It became apparent that we now had our own audience. The people in the room stayed glued to their seats for two full days. The pool tables, jukeboxes, and plush cranes dominating the Amusement Expo trade show floor held little relevance for them. When I polled the crowd about whether we should have our own association, the response was overwhelmingly positive. So in May of last year, LEXRA – the Location-based Entertainment XR Association, was born. 

This year, we’re moving on from the old format. The old VR Summit is becoming the LEXRA Summit, taking place August 3-5, 2026, at Zoocade and VieVR in Austin, Texas. It’s a standalone event, over three+ days, 100% XR. And we’re going big.  

The Industry has Grown Up

When we started, a co-located track inside a bigger show was exactly right. We didn’t have the audience to fill our own event. We needed the foot traffic of Amusement Expo to introduce the rest of the amusement industry to what we were doing. 

Today, LBE XR isn’t a curiosity anymore. It’s a legitimate entertainment category, with operators running multi-location businesses. Sandbox VR has generated over $300 million in revenue. Horizons of Khufu, a single title, is rapidly approaching $100 million in global ticket sales.  Esports Virtual Arenas – EVA – just closed a $40 million private equity round. Fever, valued at over $500 million in their last funding round, has opened over a dozen VR-powered storytelling venues. 

And there are still thousands of arcades in big cities like Paris and small towns like Moose Jaw, Canada. The Louvre Museum showcased “Mona Lisa Beyond the Glass” to its visitors, and the Prado in Madrid developed Art Masters to let visitors around the world get closer to five of their most famous artworks. 

Theme parks are adding XR attractions again. PortAventura World has just added its third mixed-reality attraction. Universal Studios Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge from Hololabs is now in three of their parks in Japan, California, and Orlando. 

And next week at the Cannes Film Festival, seven of the nine experiences selected for the immersive competition are virtual reality: two of them are large-scale free roam experiences, including Black Mirror Immersive from Univrse, and Playing with Fire from Atlas V and VIVE Arts. And that’s just the beginning. There’s so much more in development that’s going to blow your mind. 

The Summit is Growing Too

Three things make the new event different.

It’s 100% XR. 30,000+ square feet of operating LBE XR venue, dedicated entirely to our category. The largest dedicated gathering of playable LBE XR experiences anywhere in the industry. Just us, our experiences, our conversations.

It’s a conference and an immersive festival. Three tracks of education, workshops, and networking, plus a curated showcase of the latest XR technology and experiences. Games will be there. So will narrative work, museum experiences, art installations, and cultural pieces. The category is bigger than just games, and the Summit will reflect that.

And it’s the first 100% Downloadable Theme Park. Reva Enzminger, a LEXRA member, founded and owns two adjoining LBE XR venues in Austin. It’s 30K square feet of XR attractions: free roam VR, Augmented Reality experiences, and even giant holographic projections. She’s graciously offered them up for 3+ days—a full 4-wall takeover. Conference, breakouts, workshops, networking, and demos all under one roof. 

Why Austin, why August

Austin knows immersive tech and entertainment. It’s been the home to the South By Southwest conference since Ronald Reagan was the President. Ten years ago, they added an XR exhibition. It has one of the densest LBE XR clusters in the United States. Zoocade, Horizons of Khufu, two Zero Latency VR sites, Sandbox VR, and Verse Immersive all operate there. It has great live music and some of the best BBQ in the country. 

It also has the world’s first real estate holodeck. LEXRA member Agile Lens built a photorealistic free-roam tour of the $400 million Four Seasons Luxury Residences on Lake Austin. LEXRA members will get an opportunity to experience this one-of-a-kind installation. 

We picked August because it’s between the spring gaming shows and the fall IAAPA Expo — a moment when operators are planning their next year, content creators are pitching their next slate, and suppliers are showing what’s shipping. We’re not competing with anyone else’s calendar. We’ve claimed our own. And because summers in Austin tend to be hot, hotel prices are lower so more people can join us. 

The Next Chapter

The conversations we need to have in 2026-about content economics, fit-for-purpose hardware, narrative versus game-based experiences, location strategy, and museum and cultural partnerships—are conversations that need a dedicated industry moment of their own.

If you attended the original VR Arcade and Attraction Summit, you helped lay the foundation we’re standing on. The conversations we had in those Vegas hotel rooms became the playbook our industry now operates from. That foundation is what makes the LEXRA Summit possible.

If you’re new to The Summit, this is the moment to show up. The category is in its growth phase, the people defining it will be in one room for 3+ days, and the experiences you’ll get to try will shape what the next generation of immersive entertainment looks like.

Pre-register at summit.lexra.org and get a special discount when early-bird ticketing opens. We’re announcing speakers, programming, and the experience showcase over the next month.