VR storytelling at WindEurope Electric City

VESTAS

THE CHALLENGE

How do we engage the audience and help them understand Vestas' value chain, what makes the employees' hearts tick, and what it feels like to stand on the top of a wind turbine?

THE SOLUTION

Create several engaging and memorable VR experiences, and launch them together at WindEurope Electric City 2021 in Copenhagen.

Project background

Showing everyone, using immersive storytelling, what Vestas is all about.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S is the energy industry’s global partner in sustainable energy solutions, and in January 2022 Vestas was furthermore named the most sustainable company in the world in the 18th annual Global 100 ranking published by Corporate Knights. Vestas employs approximately 30,000 people. The Aarhus-headquartered company has installed more wind power than any other company worldwide – more than 150 GW of production capacity – and is the world’s largest overall producer of wind turbines.

But one thing is being a world leader. Another thing is to make current and future clients and employees understand, remember and care about your story.

The solution

We created numerous immersive experiences for Vestas’ exhibition stand – but the real hero of the show was “The Unit”.

The Unit is the landing spot for immersive storytelling. It has multi-use functions, and it can be used both at the Vestas exhibition stands, in meeting rooms and at offices.

The Unit can contain all our solutions and function as a complete exhibit stand by itself. Or it could be a part of a journey on the big stand, set to only show one or a few of the solutions. This makes for an extremely flexible and future-proof solution.

At the WindEurope event, Electric City, each of the Units conveyed four interactive VR experiences and the immersive stories of the employees of Vestas.

By using the human-sized touch display, you can explore the stories of Vestas employees from all corners of the business. This shows you the real faces of Vestas and what makes their hearts tick.

The four interactive VR experiences were:

1. Offshore Installation

You are standing on the deck of an offshore jack-up installation vessel. A Vestas deputy Installation manager will be your virtual guide. He will tell you about the ship and the things you see, and today, you’re going to help install a V164 wind turbine offshore.

2. Pre-assembly

With the pre-assembly site manager as your guide, you are transported to a birds-eye view and see the impressive pre-assembly work taking place. 29 weeks of logistics fly by in fast-forward, while your guide explains all the important work that goes on in those 29 weeks. After completing the final part of pre-assembly yourself, you are now standing at the quay next to the installation vessel and the towers you have pre-assembled – and you can admire your work.

3. Experience the Vestas SIMO III project in Finland

Normally, untrained individuals will never experience this. But with the Unit’s VR headsets, anyone can experience a guided tour of the inside and the top of a wind turbine in one of the largest wind parks in Finland.

4. Drone inspection

This experience takes the previous one to the next level. Starting on top of a wind turbine that is over 140 metres tall, you become the eyes of a drone inspecting a 61-metre-long wind turbine blade.

How do you explain the value chain of a huge operation, such as Vestas? How do you engage your audience, and help them to understand Vestas’ offerings; how our onshore and offshore wind turbines work, and how we service our wind turbines? What makes our employees’ hearts tick?How do we convey what it feels like to stand on the top of a wind turbine in the far north of Finland?

Magnus Bach, Vice President (EMBA), Group Marketing, Brand & Channels, Vestas

To answer all these questions

And to make visitors, customers and the public understand what they mean, we wanted to create an engaging and memorable experience. And early on, we saw that VR and other immersive technologies were a perfect fit for this goal.

So together, Vestas and Cadpeople joined forces for the bi-annual WindEurope event, Electric City, in November 2021 to show everyone, using immersive storytelling, what Vestas is all about.

The scene was built by our partner, Jysk Display – and it was the largest exhibition stand at the whole event.

The results

By telling the story using virtual reality, the Unit was a great success at WindEurope Electric City.

The immersive technology made it possible for Vestas to make complex and difficult messages very tangible and intuitive; to attract a lot of attention with an enticing expo stand; and to thrill their visitors with experiences that they most likely don’t have every day.

The Electric City event attracted 8000 visitors from across the globe, as well as 300+ speakers. And out of approx. 400 exhibitors, Vestas’ stand was the largest and most-visited at the entire expo.