2020 was the Gap Year from Normality
What a year it has been. It’s mid-November now, and when I look back at the social media posts and work emails dating back to January and February it feels like a whole lifetime ago when life was normal.
Now that we’re in the “long tail end” of the pandemic response in NZ, things are slowly improving and we have time to reflect and look forward.
So what happened to The VR Club in that time? We shut down like everyone else for the lockdown, with the difference being that I had already given notice on the lease at our premises on Hurstmere Road the week before the announcement. While I could see what was coming and wanted to get ahead of it, the other part of the story is that if not for the coronavirus I actually wanted to move The VR Club to new premises anyway. We had reached our capacity at that location and needed to grow (and get some air conditioning!).
That didn’t make it any easier to pull the plug though, and I delayed it as long as I could. At the time, I didn’t know if we would ever come back. As much as I wanted to return, would people even still want to go out to play together after corona had run its course?
When we moved down to level 3 in late April I got everything out of the shop at put it into storage (not an easy task in level 3!), to be ready and waiting to reopen when the time is right.
Meanwhile the exit of the lease was anything but smooth, I won’t go into details but suffice to say that discussions with the landlord broke down, expensive lawyers were retained, and eventually I requested a hearing at the disputes tribunal where a settlement was reached. That was one of the most stressful 6 months of my life, but I learned a lot too.
On a personal level, while dealing with all of that, we had an unexpected death in the family between lockdowns, and then just last week we also had the family dog pass on as well.
2020 has been a rough year. We’re just lucky we weren’t directly affected by COVID-19, it still could have been a lot worse.
But The VR Club will return. At first I explored partnering The VR Club with several related companies and sharing floor space, but discussions faded away as the practicality of such an arrangement became difficult.
So since September(ish) I’ve been researching new premises, shout-out to the helpful real estate agents who have been helping me narrow the search. We do need more room to grow, but rent is expensive in Takapuna and hasn’t dropped due to the recession we are in. It’s so sad to see many empty shopfronts around the retail district.
We will keep The VR Club on the north shore of Auckland, but where exactly is not yet certain. We are currently aiming to be back open for business early next year.
What will be different? In a word: diversity. We already had a fantastic selection of over 30 games available, but when we reopen there will be more surprises in store, different types of experiences... not just more games! I don’t want to spoil it but we have some very exciting new ideas which weren’t available just a year ago, it didn’t even exist! Keep an eye out.
In the meantime don’t forget there is the We Love Aotearoa festival in December, hosted by none other than Gabe Newell (co-founder of Valve and Steam) and his race car driver buddies. There will be food, live music and VR experiences there hosted by Virtual Reality Studio, I think perhaps even some Valve Index VR headsets to play with? Should be a fun weekend.
Plus if you need a VR fix in the meantime we are renting out some of our gear with a selection of games, but make sure you’ve got space at home for it we wouldn’t want you to smash your TV like it’s 2008 with a Nintendo Wii!
Thanks for reading if you’ve come this far,... over the last 9 months I’ve taken phone calls, Facebook messages and emails from far more people than I ever expected who were asking if The VR Club was open or when it was returning and it honestly makes me a bit emotional that it has seen such amazing support from the community.
Thank you so much, and I hope to see you soon in the new year.
Bring on 2021
-Peter
Owner, The VR Club