Hero Zone: Where Social VR Meets Real-World Revenue -
Everest: The First Ascent won the People’s Choice Award at the 2026 LEXRA Summit in Dallas as the highest-rated experience on the demo floor. Eclipso‘s VR retelling of the 1953 ascent came in at the top of the attendee ratings.
The experience opens on 10 November at Pocket Planet Canada in downtown Toronto. The miniature-world attraction is built around scale models of Canada’s landmarks.
The ratings came from the LEXRA Summit‘s demo day at Gilley’s Dallas on Tuesday, 6 October 2026. Attendees reviewed the experiences on the floor using REMARKABLE, a framework Laura Hess created for rating experiences. Hess founded Reuleaux, an experiential consultancy. Everest came in at the top of the list.
Eclipso is a member of LEXRA, the trade association for location-based XR, which runs the Summit and its People’s Choice Award. Bob Cooney, who publishes The VR Collective, is LEXRA’s executive director.
Pocket Planet Canada opens Everest: The First Ascent on 10 November 2026 at 10 Dundas Street East. Pocket Planet, a UK company that builds permanent miniature attractions, calls the 45,000-square-foot Toronto site its flagship.
Pocket Planet Canada sets the visit at 50 minutes: a 15-minute onboarding, then the 35-minute VR experience. The experience is for ages eight and up, and ticket pre-sales open on 27 October.
Venice Immersive selected Everest for the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. It opened at Eclipso NYC in Manhattan on 30 September. Jean Dallac and Benjamin Auriche created it, and Eclipso co-produced it with Small Creative.
“We wanted audiences to feel the scale of the mountain, experience the challenges faced by Hillary, Norgay and the Sherpa team, and connect with the human determination behind their achievement,” said Antoine Lieutaud, founder and CEO of Eclipso, which runs VR centres in France, Spain and the United States.
For attraction operators without a VR floor, Pocket Planet shows one way in: a licensed 35-minute VR title sold alongside an existing miniature-world visit. For content studios, Everest takes a People’s Choice win from a trade audience into its first third-party venue.
What won the LEXRA Summit People’s Choice Award? Everest: The First Ascent, co-produced by Eclipso and Small Creative, as the highest-rated experience at the 2026 Summit’s demo day in Dallas.
How did LEXRA Summit attendees rate the experiences? Attendees reviewed each experience on the demo floor using REMARKABLE, a framework for rating experiences created by Laura Hess.
What is the REMARKABLE framework? A framework for evaluating experiences, created by Laura Hess, founder of the experiential consultancy Reuleaux.
When does Everest: The First Ascent open in Toronto? On 10 November 2026 at Pocket Planet Canada, 10 Dundas Street East. Ticket pre-sales open on 27 October, and the experience is for ages eight and up.
