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Quest Parties: A Guide to Introducing VR To Family and Friends
12 min readSep 30, 2019
The holidays are a perfect opportunity to bring something fun and exciting to parties with your family and friends. Having a fully un-tethered virtual reality experience sounds like a fantastic way of mixing it up for the holidays — but how do you curate and facilitate the perfect VR experience to the uninitiated? Updated: 2020–10–25 to include the Quest 2.
The Packing List
Let’s start off with what you need to bring with you. Sure, it may seem obvious — but having it in a neat list in front of you might help and who knows? Maybe there is something here you haven’t thought of.
- A fully charged Quest and controllers with brand new batteries (I’m a fan of Energizer; rechargables just don’t seem to last as long in my experience)
- The official charging brick/cable so you can top off your Quest during any down time (also during any sitting experiences; every little bit helps)
- Extra AA batteries — don’t count on your own experience with battery life to cloud your judgement; there will be a lot of variables that can change your battery life expectancy). I’d go with extra batteries for every four hours of play just to be safe.
- A mountable battery pack for emergencies. I use a very rudimentary portable battery with velcro straps taped to it — hey, it works.
- A full streaming device set up; that is a compatible Chromecast or Shield TV along with the power cables and yes, bring an HDMI cable too — a long one — unless you’re absolutely familiar with the party set up. VR is no fun if there isn’t an audience. TEST THIS SET UP before you get to your destination. Assume they have nothing you need; bring it all.
- A good collection of experiences (we’ll talk more about these later)
- Disinfecting wipes (bring a good supply)
- Lens cleaner (microfiber cloth)
- Recommended: Compatible headphones/earbuds (vet them yourself before bringing)
- Recommended: Better-than-stock lanyards or aftermarket…
