The car as an entertainment platform

Tradition and innovative ideas are the hallmarks of the cultural festival in Salzburg. It offers a varied and world-class range of plays, operas, and concerts. That is why it is also a perfect setting for novel cultural experiences.

The approximately 40-minute virtual journey through time with the VR headset starts in Salzburg’s festival district in an Audi e-tron. The passengers then leap back in time to the year 1762 and suddenly find themselves immersed in a three-dimensional historical world. Now in a horse-drawn carriage, they ride through baroque Salzburg in search of six-year-old Mozart. Along the way, they pass historic buildings such as the Felsenreitschule theater and the Salzburg Cathedral.

After this exciting section, they take off the VR headset to enjoy today’s scenery and the music of the festival. Once they reach Neutorstraße, the guests put the VR headset back on.

They now land in the year 1920 when the history of the Salzburg Festival officially began with Max Reinhardt’s production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s play "Jedermann".

In the third VR section, passengers can take a look into the future, into the year 2121. The VR time travelers experience an artistic flight through heaven and hell in the style of "Jedermann" and Mozart’s opera "The Magic Flute".

The VR ride through Salzburg combines rich cultural content and an innovative technological experience – truly bringing culture to life in the process.

The 3D sound in the car is designed to resemble a concert hall experience, with the Bang & Olufsen® 3D sound system in the Audi e-tron creating a natural sound environment – without any artificial effects.

The three-dimensional experiences in the Audi e-tron are made possible by an immersive technology that combines content with acceleration and steering as well as navigation data about the route and time of the journey in real time.

This not only engages passengers’ visual and acoustic senses, but also integrates the car’s driving dynamics and acceleration into the VR experience.

Audi initiated the innovative VR technology behind it, and the tech entertainment start-up holoride is continuing to develop it. Not only does it create a new form of entertainment while driving, but it also offers expanded opportunities to learn and work on the go.

The journey through virtual worlds synchronized with the vehicle’s movement also reduces the motion sickness that often occurs when consuming visual media in the conventional way.

Together with partners from the automotive and media industries, holoride has set itself the goal of establishing this technology as a new, cutting-edge entertainment format.

Supporting the arts and culture has a long tradition at brand with the four rings. Audi employees founded the Audi Philharmonic Wind Orchestra more than 50 years ago, giving rise to an awareness within the company of the need to effectively support cultural activities and fulfill its duties as a corporate citizen.

Audi’s cultural activities include its own formats such as the Audi Summer Concerts and the Audi Youth Choir Academy as well as the sponsorship of high-profile cultural institutions such as the Salzburg Festival.

Culture at Audi is all about a creative dialogue with classical music, theater, jazz, electronic music, pop, or the visual arts. This understanding of culture at Audi is put into practice differently at each of the company’s locations.

From fall 2022, select models that roll off the line with the third generation modular infotainment toolkit (MIB 3) and the latest software cluster will be holoride-capable. These models will be ready for holoride throughout the European market as well as in Canada, the USA, Japan and China. The availability of holoride itself may deviate from this depending on the individual market. Initially, holoride will be launched in Germany, the UK and the US market. Other markets will follow successively. To use holoride, a virtual reality headset that has been enabled for it must be connected with the vehicle.