The Empty Booths of Brussels: Is the XR Industry Out of Air?

Or, why the biggest European immersive tech event felt like a metaphor for the whole industry

AI generated image via NightCafe Creator

UnitedXR 2025 in Brussels bills itself as Europe’s premier showcase for immersive technologies. If that claim holds true, then the state of the European XR industry is problematic. The event itself felt less like a celebration of breakthrough applications and more like a physical manifestation of the sector’s core dilemma: several interesting technologies in desperate search of urgent, real-world problems to solve.

The conference agenda hinted at this vagueness, leaning heavily into talks about consortiums, funds, and programs. Good to know, but that’s the support of innovation rather than the innovation itself. Where were the compelling, proven use cases? The successful endeavors moving beyond pilot projects? This theoretical focus bled into the showfloor. The noticeable absence of giants like Samsung, Sony, or Acer (save for the event’s major sponsors) left a vacuum. More telling were the empty booths and a layout that partially hid the startup area behind storage, which I suppose was an unintentional but apt metaphor for new ideas being sidelined.

The fundamental issue, however, wasn’t just the show’s organization. It was the palpable lack of purpose. Walking the floor, I encountered many who were curious, but few who were driven by a specific need. With our autostereoscopic 3D display, we received pitches instead of problems; visitors wanted to sell us their company, not solve a pain point with our tech. And not many cared too much that their solution didn’t relate at all to what we do. The sole exception seemed to be representatives from the automotive sector, who actively explored solutions. Elsewhere, even companies focused on the apparently industry’s lone “safe” use case (VR/AR training) generated only modest interest.

This paints a concerning picture. The showfloor, in its quiet and under-attended way, revealed an industry still grappling with product-market fit on a grand scale. The technology has advanced since the metaverse hype, yet the event struggled to answer the most basic question: What is all this for?

Echoes of AWE: Familiar Faces, Familiar Pitches

My experience on the UnitedXR showfloor felt like a stark echo of my time at AWE 2025 in Los Angeles just a few months prior. There was motion, people walking, demos running, but the underlying rhythm was identical, and just as hollow. The same major sponsor brands dominated the space, the conversations followed the same well-worn scripts, and the dynamic with attendees played out with a dispiriting familiarity.

Once again, the most common interaction was a reversal of expected roles. Visitors would engage with our autostereoscopic 3D display, not to probe its applicability to a challenge they faced, but as a preamble to launching into a pitch about their own startup or service. This “solution looking for a problem” posture has become the default networking currency at these events. While interesting, it creates an environment of parallel monologues rather than collaborative dialogue. Everyone is broadcasting; very few are listening.

This repetition is more than just déjà vu; it’s symptomatic of a stagnant ecosystem. The fact that the attendee profile, behavior, and even the sparse distribution of genuine business interest felt identical across continents suggests the XR world is talking to itself in a very small, closed loop. The energy isn’t translating into diversified, outward-facing business development. Instead, we see the same players circulating the same ideas, validating each other’s presence but failing to attract the fresh new ideas, or, more importantly, the problem-holders from diverse industries needed to drive substantive growth. The industry isn’t evolving its narrative or its audience between one major event and the next.

The Dull Pulse of Innovation: Reading the Room (and the Booths)

Beyond the official agendas and product sheets, a technology event always has an overall mood: a collective atmosphere that you absorb through casual conversations, the design of booths, and the energy in the aisles. At UnitedXR, that meta-game told me a story of fatigue. With one vibrant exception, the prevailing pulse was decidedly dull.

The Hong Kong pavilion stood out as a striking contrast: colorful, energetic, and thoughtfully curated. It projected a sense of optimism and cohesive ambition. Elsewhere, however, the tone was muted. Many booths felt transactional and utilitarian, lacking the creative spark or narrative punch that signals a team bursting with something groundbreaking to share.

This isn’t about flashy gimmicks. It’s about the signal of confidence and vitality. When builders are excited by genuine progress or a clear market fit, that energy radiates into their space. It’s the drive, the light in the eyes of the person that is telling you what they do, not looking for a transaction, but because they believe on what they do. At UnitedXR, that radiation was faint at best. The atmosphere suggested an industry going through the motions, burdened by the weight of past hype and uncertain of its next genuine leap forward. The room, quite literally, felt like it was waiting for a reason to get excited again.

No External Excuses: A European Event’s Internal Crisis

In reflecting on AWE in Los Angeles, I could attribute some of its shortcomings to external factors, and I described in this post:

Reflections on AWE 2025

For UnitedXR in Brussels, the heart of the European Union, such convenient alibis vanish. This was the industry’s chance to rally without obvious logistical or geopolitical barriers. That it failed to do so points squarely to an internal crisis.

Brussels is accessible, centrally located, and a symbolic hub for policy and innovation. There was no major disruption, no overarching reason for key players or eager attendees to stay away. Yet, the empty booths and the absence of major non-sponsor brands spoke volumes.

The sector can no longer blame slow adoption or event fatigue on circumstantial headwinds. When the most significant dedicated event in Europe feels undercooked and underattended in such a favorable location, it shows that the current model is losing its power to attract and inspire. Let’s not forget that this new event was the combination of 2 existing ones. The issue is native to the XR community, its narratives, its value proposition, and perhaps its very cohesion. This wasn’t a event weakened by external forces; it was one that revealed a concerning vacancy at its own core.

The Pay-to-Play Problem: When Sponsorship Drowns Out Merit

A core dysfunction plaguing events like this one is the erasure of meritocracy by commercial sponsorship. The principle is simple: access to the stage is often purchased, not earned. While I understand these gatherings are expensive to produce, the current balance has tipped into the absurd, fundamentally removing the event’s purpose and intellectual value.

The result is a sanitized, repetitive conference agenda. When speaking slots are primarily booked by sponsors and large funding bodies, attendees are subjected to a loop of corporate messaging and broad policy overviews. Hearing about the Horizon Europe program for the fifth time in a row (true story) isn’t insight; it’s a ritual. It crowds out the vital, raw, and potentially groundbreaking voices: the small research team with a novel prototype, the startup solving a niche problem in a brilliant way, the developer with an unexpected use case that could spark a new direction.

This pay-to-play model creates a closed ecosystem. It tells the market that thought leadership is for sale, and that the most valuable ideas come with the biggest budgets. For an attendee paying a substantial ticket price, often between 500 and 1000 euros, this feels like a betrayal. They come for the leading edge, not the well-funded echo. It cheapens the discourse, stifles surprise, and ensures that the most interesting conversations often happen not on the official stages, but in the hallways, in spite of the program, not because of it.

The Networking Myth: Cocktail Parties and Lonely Corners

A primary justification for the expense and effort of in-person events is their supposed superiority for networking that virtual platforms cannot replicate. Yet, every event I go these days laid bare the awkward truth: simply assembling people in a room does not guarantee meaningful interaction. The social architecture of these events is often broken, reinforcing cliques and leaving many stranded on the periphery.

The pattern is wearyingly familiar. After the day’s sessions, a sponsored reception offers drinks and finger food. But instead of a dynamic mixing chamber, it often fractures into pre-existing pods: colleagues talking to colleagues, friends catching up with friends. Meanwhile, individuals or small groups who lack an established network stand visibly adrift, waiting for a brave approach that may never come. A company like Meta’s generous provision of refreshments is appreciated, but it is not a networking strategy; it’s merely a gathering mechanism.

This inefficient social layer undermines a key pillar of the event’s value proposition. The “networking” frequently feels less like a curated opportunity and more like a high-school dance for professionals, where the social dynamics can be just as intimidating and exclusionary. For companies spending thousands on a booth and travel, and for attendees investing significant sums, this failure to facilitate genuine, productive connections is a critical shortfall that calls the very return on investment into question. The promise of connection remains largely unfulfilled, happening by chance rather than by design.

A Call for a New Blueprint: What Should an Event Actually Do?

The cumulative experience of UnitedXR and too many similar events calls not to a simple need for better planning, but for a fundamental reimagining. What should an industry event accomplish? It must be more than a trade show for existing believers or a pay-to-play stage. Its blueprint should be built on two core pillars: curated meritocracy and engineered connection.

First, merit must be restored as the primary currency for the stage and the floor. This means actively seeking out and amplifying genuine innovation, whether it comes from a university lab, a bootstrapped startup, or a skunkworks project within a larger firm. Selection should be based on novelty, proven application, or technical breakthrough, not marketing budget. This would instantly refresh the content, attract audiences hungry for the true cutting edge, and restore intellectual credibility.

Second, networking must be transformed from a hope into a designed process. This could take many forms: curated matchmaking based on attendee profiles, facilitated roundtables on specific challenges, themed “connection zones” with clear topics and moderators, or even algorithmic “speed-dating” for professionals. The goal is to create structured opportunities for serendipity, breaking down walls between cliques and giving everyone a clear point of entry into conversation.

An event should act as an accelerant for the industry it serves. It should be a forcing function for progress, a place where problems find solutions, talent finds opportunity, and nascent ideas find critical feedback and partnership. It must provide a palpable sense of momentum and worthiness. The current model, as evidenced in Brussels, is no longer fulfilling that vital function. The industry doesn’t just need another event; it needs a new kind of gathering entirely, one designed not to sell floor space, but to genuinely catalyze what comes next.