Virtual Tyneside online experience expects to boost tourism
Mar 20 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal
A VIRTUAL replica of Tyneside has been created which is expected to boost tourism visitor numbers to the region and help North East businesses gain a global presence.
Members of Second Life – a virtual world which is expected to be used by the majority of people online by 2012 – can now “stroll” down to Newcastle’s Quayside and across the Gateshead Millennium Bridge to the Baltic.
Once inside the contemporary arts centre they can browse through the latest exhibitions – although, rather than being crafted by famous creatives such as Yoko Ono, they will be made by students at Newcastle University.
Users with money in their pocket can even pop into the virtual shop run by Gateshead’s famous football shirt retailer Toffs to deck themselves out in black (or red) and white stripes. They can also attend virtual events on the Quayside run in parallel with real events. Earlier this month the first live mixed-reality event in Tyneside’s Second Life counterpart took place in collaboration with the Tyneside Cinema.
International DJ’s played a set to an audience across the world live in Second Life and a real-world crowd at the cinema’s bar. But these are just the initial stages of the plan to use Second Life to encourage more visitors to the North East and help digital businesses in the region tap into the increasingly-lucrative opportunities of the virtual world.
Technology firm Vector 76, which created the virtual Tyneside, plans to expand the Second Life landscape up from Newcastle’s Quayside as far as North as St James’s Park and East to the Ouseburn Valley as well as across parts of Gateshead.
Vector 76’s Shaun Allan said: “We want to push everything about the North East and we hope to expand as quickly as we can.
“We are trying to create more and more events and there’s an awful lot of interest starting to bubble up.”
The company will also develop a business quarter behind the virtual Law Courts on Newcastle’s Quayside which it plans to rent out to online businesses in the region.
