IMMERSIVE X 2026: Reclaim the Future The Full Program for Our Global XR Festival Is Live

Our journey is taking shape. From November 10–12, 2026, IMMERSIVE X returns for its sixth edition – with more than 100 presenters, around 70 sessions and 10 tracks across three days, entirely inside immersive virtual worlds. Time to get ready to Reclaim the Future.

Our present is shaped by overlapping crises, rapid technological change and a growing sense of uncertainty about what lies ahead. The XR industry has had its own fair share of stormy weather, with platform shutdowns, layoffs and changing expectations around the Metaverse. Yet meaningful change requires more than caution or concern. It needs positive ideas about where we actually want to go.

That is the thought behind this year’s guiding theme Reclaim the Future. What role can XR and immersive media play in helping us imagine, design and actively shape that future? Because unlike most media, XR allows us to do more than talk about possible futures. We can step inside them, explore them together, challenge them and perhaps even get a feeling for what they might be like. And that is exactly what we want to explore at IMMERSIVE X 2026.

Shaped by Our Community

After hosting a workshop with our community in March and listening closely to their ideas and feedback, we’ve introduced several critical changes that will make our sixth edition a little different and, hopefully, even more impactful.

One conclusion stood out: if we invite people to put on a headset and spend three days together in immersive virtual worlds, we should make the most of what this medium can actually do. So this year, we are giving significantly more room to interactive formats – experiences, workshops, guided explorations, performances and discussions that invite you not just to listen, but to participate.

Another result of these conversations is our new Governance Track, developed together with Michael Barngrover, Managing Director of XR4Europe. It asks a question that feels increasingly urgent: What kind of frameworks do we need to create a Metaverse that truly deserves to be called a shared and safe space, one where ideas about the future can emerge, and where that future itself can be shaped together? And as several major US players scale back their ambitions in the field, what role could Europe play in shaping what comes next?

I’m also particularly happy to welcome the Virtual Worlds Museum as our new Cultural Partner. Its founder Julian Reyes has become a trusted advisor to me on many aspects of IMMERSIVE X, generously sharing his perspective and experience as we shape the festival. And his contribution goes far beyond advice: with Virtual Worlds Museum venues across different platforms and his own sessions and activities throughout the program, Julian is helping us turn IMMERSIVE X into the kind of cross-platform journey through virtual worlds that we want it to be.

From the Pioneers to a New Generation

I’m incredibly happy to see so many new faces in this year’s line-up alongside familiar ones – and many members of our community who have been part of this journey before. Among more than 100 presenters are some of the people who have shaped immersive media over the past decades and others who are currently pushing its boundaries.

Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, one of the pioneers of social virtual worlds, will join us, as will Shane Harris, who is working on bringing AltspaceVR back for a new generation of users. Cortney Harding, author of The Spatial Race, will take a look ahead in her keynote “The State of the Metaverse in 2027.” We’re also thrilled to welcome the Ferryman Collective, fresh from their Emmy win for their immersive theatre work, as well as acclaimed VRChat world creator Fins of Finsworks, who takes us aboard the UNISA Astoria and into the cinematic universe of Project: Lost Worlds – Journey to Erios.

The program spans different generations, disciplines and perspectives. And that’s important to us. Reclaiming the future shouldn’t be about one vision of what comes next. It should be about bringing different visions together and creating space to explore them.

More Than a Program

But IMMERSIVE X has never only been about what’s written in the program. Some of my favorite moments happen somewhere in between: when a conversation continues long after a session has ended, when people who didn’t know each other an hour earlier suddenly set off to explore another world together, or when an experience changes the way you look at something you thought you already understood.

That’s also why we think of IMMERSIVE X as a journey rather than simply a conference. For three days, people from different countries, disciplines and communities inhabit virtual spaces together. They meet as avatars, explore, discuss, experiment and share experiences. For us at vm-people, this is also part of what we call Spatial Transformation: exploring what happens when digital communication moves beyond flat screens and becomes something we can actually step inside.

The interesting question is no longer how we can recreate existing formats in 3D. It is what new forms of storytelling, communication, collaboration and community become possible once we start taking spatial presence seriously. IMMERSIVE X is our way of exploring that question together.

Explore the full IMMERSIVE X 2026 program, secure your spot and join us November 10–12. You can apply for an invite here: immersive-x.de

Let’s Reclaim the Future. Together.