Crowds enjoy the downhill skiing virtual-reality experience at Samsung's Olympic Park showcase.Ben Fischer
Fittingly for the global Olympic sponsor that accounts for a sixth of South Korea’s economy, Samsung’s showcase dominates the Gangneung Olympic Park at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Just one of nine displays Samsung has across the Olympic footprint and Incheon International Airport, the black walled-and-glass facility in the Olympic Park fit many hundreds of occupants on a busy afternoon earlier this week. Some relaxed on an escalating series of benches that doubled as a staircase to the second floor. Others gathered in the café in the back, and some stood in lengthy lines to experience virtual-reality activations.
Samsung's virtual-reality "mission to space" ride has been a big draw.Ben Fischer
After entering the structure, fans can gawk at the first-generation Samsung phones from the 1980s, then proceed into other historical highlights of the phones’ development. One striking display lays out the hardware pieces of every model of phone ever produced in a vertical spiral. There’s also a display of every Samsung Olympic pin and torch since the 1988 Seoul Summer Games, when it first joined with the local organizing committee. Fans can check in at each exhibit on their phones, gathering points that can be exchanged at the café.
Fans experience a skeleton race.Ben Fischer
From there, the real fun starts. Virtual-reality rides such as “A mission to space” and VR-powered Olympic sport experiences such as skeleton and downhill skiing draw big crowds, and also drew cheers from Samsung-sponsored athletes from Korea, Italy and India who toured the place.
One other activation emphasized the waterproof qualities of the Samsung Galaxy and its stylus pen by taking a selfie underwater and encouraging you to draw on it. In another corner, children learned basic computer programming by making a robot move by inputting commands into a phone.
