nextReality.festival 2026

On 18 and 19 November 2026 the XR scene meets at Kreativspeicher M28 in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt for the nextReality.festival. I am speaking on the second day.

Two days, four stages, a free exhibition and an award ceremony, spread over two floors.

What the nextReality.festival is

The festival is run by nextReality.Hamburg e.V., a non-profit association carried by companies, universities and the city of Hamburg itself. It is the point in the year where the people who actually build immersive projects end up in the same building: developers, creatives, agencies, broadcasters, research institutes and the clients who commission the work.

The conference runs in thematic tracks across four stages and the workshop rooms. The exhibition shows the projects nominated for the nextReality.Contest next to studios and startups, and you can walk in and try them without a ticket.

What to expect

• Four stages plus workshop rooms: talks, panels and hands-on sessions across both days.
• Exhibition: current VR, AR and MR work to try out, including the nextReality.Contest nominees. Free entry.
• nextReality.Contest: the award ceremony is on the evening of 18 November at the Astor Film Lounge, followed by the after-show party at the VRHQ.
• Networking: two days with the people who decide which immersive projects get made in northern Germany.

Who is speaking

Over twenty speakers from research, broadcasting, agencies and product teams, among them:

• Prof. Dr. Frank Steinicke – Professor and Head of Chair, Universität Hamburg
• Prof. Dr. Johanna Pirker – Professor, Technical University of Munich
• Hugh Hou – YouTuber and Immersive Filmmaker, Spatial Film
• Keeley Turner – CEO of Metaverse Stage and XR Filmmaker, Spatial Film
• Dr. Leon Pietschmann – XR Expert and Researcher
• Carmen Britz and Lukas Höh – Innovation Hub, WDR
• Stefan Marx – Co-Founder and CEO, ZAUBAR
• Simon Graff – Chair, nextReality.Hamburg e.V.

Grab your ticket and come to Hamburg.

nextReality.festival Special: Why Nobody Talks About Sound in XR, But Should

My talk on 19 November is about the line in the budget that goes first.

I come from film. Everybody there knows that sound matters, and almost nobody acts like it. That is the reason I left. In XR the pattern is the same, only younger. Audio gets whatever is left after camera, light and the expensive props, and everyone still expects the result to feel premium. That calculation never works out, and it repeats itself in project after project.

The order is always the same. First the sound budget goes. Then an AI voice instead of a voice actor. Then stock music instead of a composition. And at the end the developer drops the effects in on the side.

Most of the time nobody is being careless about it. The people running these projects have a project and no idea what sound could do for them, and I count myself lucky when they ask at all. That is the gap I want to close in those thirty minutes.

So I will show where a headset actually loses you, what the sequence above costs further down the line, and which decisions in week one cannot be repaired in post. My own rule of thumb: plan 10 to 20 percent of the production budget for audio. Immersion does not happen because an audio format logo turns up in the credits.

Thirty minutes including questions. Bring the project you are stuck on.