Costa Mesa, CA, July 18, 2022 - Tickets are now on sale for the Second Annual "Dome Fest West" which will begin on Thursday, October 6, from 6-9pm/PT at the Orange Coast College Community Planetarium in Costa Mesa, CA - "the City of the Arts." Dome Fest West is a 360-degree film festival and conference that brings together the filmmaking community, Hollywood filmmakers and up-and-coming immersive content creators from around the world.
Dome Fest West 2022 will continue on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 from 9am to 8pm, and on October 9, from 9am to 6pm. On Oct 9 at 7pm, a final award ceremony will take place. A full schedule of film selections along with panel speakers and presenters will be released on August 15th.
This year's festival will screen Fully-Immersive, 360-Degree Media Shows, chosen as the best productions of 2021-22. The festival will also include new technology presentations, industry panels, interactive workshops, industry gatherings and parties. Event organizers expect up to 300 immersive filmmakers from around the globe to attend the festival in-person as well as virtually. Dome Fest West has been designed to take fulldome content "to the next level."
The 2022 Dome Fest West festival and conference will focus mainly on fulldome films, the artists that make them, and ways to further connect the fulldome community to new opportunities that are coming up. The Madison Square Garden Sphere in Las Vegas is structurally almost complete and already stirring up new fulldome content fans. As immersive cinema continues to evolve, more and more people are becoming interested in the genre. Immersive cinema offers a unique and engaging experience that traditional cinema simply cannot match. With the increasing popularity of immersive cinema, it is poised to become one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the years to come.)
Earlier digital Dome Fest West events which took place during 2022 were the Metaverse Summer Series and IMERSA Day Virtual meetings.
Ryan Moore, Executive Director and Founder of Dome Fest West, said, "I see fulldome and immersive cinema as the future of the movie-going experience. With fulldome, you are no longer just watching a movie on a screen; you are inside the movie. The action unfolds all around you, and you feel like you are a part of it. It's an incredibly immersive experience that is unlike anything else. Immersive and fulldome films are currently revolutionizing the way people see movies!"
Adds Moore, "Fulldome cinemas are already popular in Europe and Asia, and I expect them to become more popular in North America as well. They offer a truly unique experience that you can't get from traditional movie theaters and I'm sure they will enjoy a bright future. With its ability to create a truly immersive experience, it's easy to see why the fulldome experience is poised for growth in the years to come, and when that happens, immersive cinema will truly come into its own."
In 2021, Dome Fest West was conceived to introduce new audiences to the powerful, immersive fulldome medium; support creators and technology across all facets of the dome space; bring together the Hollywood creative community, taste-makers and tech-experts working within the fulldome industry to educate, entertain and inspire one another; and highlight the most creative and marketable fulldome content currently being produced around the world.
Films selected for exhibit at any of the four festivals are automatically qualified to possibly receive a #BestOfEarth award, the highest honor a fulldome film can receive within the global immersive cinema community. DFW Executive Director Ryan Moore, and co-founders Ed Lantz and Kate McCallum, worked with Micky Remann to produce #BestOfEarth as a response to the COVID crisis, which compromised many of the traditional festival outlets for artists' work to be recognized.
To date, Dome Fest West 2022 sponsors include Festoon, Nest Immersion, Experience 360, Vortex Immersion Media and c3: Center for Conscious Creativity.
About DOME FEST WEST FOUNDERS
DFW Founders left to right Ian Downie Michael Daut Scott Mitchell Kate McCallum Ed Lantz Ryan Moore Amber Hutchinson Timmy Edens
Ryan Moore Dome Fest West Executive Director/Founder Ryan Moore is also the founder of Experience 360°, a Burbank-based Virtual Experience Design Studio that has been creating branded and narrative immersive content since 2015. Moore's diverse career within the film production arena includes experimental branded content (for clients Disney, Toyota and GoPro;) TV commercials (for clients Pepsi and Jack In The Box;) music festival coverage (for client Fuse Media;) and Reality TV projects (including the series "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette."
Ed Lantz DFW Co-Founder Ed Lantz is an immersive media entrepreneur, engineer, producer and experience designer. Lantz left aerospace engineering in 1990 to transform traditional planetariums into immersive visualization environments, designing over a dozen dome theaters worldwide including Egypt's Library of Alexandria Planetarium, Domodigital at Papalote Museo del Niño in Mexico City, and the National Space Centre in Leicester, UK. He sees modern digital domes as "digital temples of transformation" for their ability to combine art and science to create compelling immersive journeys, performances and experiences with positive impact. His company Vortex Immersion Media develops immersive media venues and experiences for clients and audiences worldwide.
Kate McCallum DFW Co-Founder Kate McCallum is an award-winning multi-media producer/writer, with 20 years background at NBCUniversal and Paramount Studios. She is also the founder of c3: Center for Conscious Creativity, a 501c3 whose mission is to "Create a better future through the power of arts, media and storytelling," and Bridge Arts Media, a media development and production company. McCallum produces fulldome and immersive content, served six years on the Producers Guild of America New Media Council, is a member of the TV Academy, and recently co-authored Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media.
About DOME FEST WEST
Launched in Fall 2021, Dome Fest West is an immersive Dome film festival and conference designed to introduce the global immersive Dome filmmaking community to Hollywood's new, up-and-coming content creators.
Presenting "The World's Best Dome Media that Exists Today," Dome Fest West annually showcases fulldome film screenings, new technology presentations, industry panels, interactive workshops and exclusive parties. Immersive filmmakers from around the globe attend the festival each year - an event which has been designed to take immersive Dome content "to the next level."
