[VketReal/VR Sign Language] The story of how the VRChat sign language community exhibited at VketReal for the first time
This is a story about our first time exhibiting as the VRChat sign language community, "VRC Sign Language Portal Connect," at the Parareal Creator area held on the 20th and 21st of VketReal 2025 Winter.
Exhibiting at VketReal as "VRC Sign Language Portal Connect"
At the VketReal event held in the winter of 2025, there was a Parareal Creator area where individuals and groups could exhibit. This time, I exhibited as a Parareal Creator. The exhibition itself was under the name "VRC Sign Language Portal Connect," and I (Shiro Koto) served as the organizer for this event!
"VRC Sign Language Portal Connect" is a collective of communities active in sign language within VRChat, and I also host a sign language event called "VRC Sign Language Chat Gathering" within it. Various other sign language events are held every week as well. Please take a look here for more details!
■ Event Content
For this VketReal, we prepared an environment where you could actually connect to VRChat from the venue and have a simple VR sign language experience! For those who visited our booth, we taught them simple sign language like "Hello" and had them experience communicating in sign language with the staff on the VRChat side.
We explained what VR sign language is in the first place, and conveyed that even without special equipment or hand tracking, you can communicate in sign language using "VR controllers." We also used posters created for the exhibition to introduce the characteristics, activities, and events of the sign language community!
Furthermore, friends from the sign language community and their own friends also came to visit, communicating with the local staff and VRChat staff through sign language. Also, a deaf person from overseas happened to stop by, and we were able to chat as well~ ✨✨✨
This time, for those who don't know sign language, we received technical cooperation from "VRCT," which can convert "voice to text" and send it to VRChat, and used it as a supplementary tool for interactions with the VRChat staff. We sometimes use "VRCT" for events held in VRChat, and people who usually use its original function of translating from Japanese to foreign languages also stopped by, so we talked about that too!
I'm not sure if this will be released, but... I was interviewed by the representative of HIKKY after the event ended! It was a bit sudden, so my answers were a bit stumbling... I'm not confident if I answered properly. If it ever gets released, please take a look!
■ Purpose of the Exhibition
I'll write about why I decided to exhibit at VketReal as a sign language community. There are two main reasons.
To get VRChatters and the general public interested in the sign language community
To create opportunities and places for everyone in the VRC/VR sign language community to be active and interact
Needless to say, many people interacting in VRChat are hearing people, and I think they rarely have contact with deaf or hard-of-hearing people in their daily lives. That is why, through this VketReal exhibition, our goals were to have our existence recognized, to get people interested in our activities and community, and to make people feel that it's something familiar with nothing special about it.
And there was another big goal: to create a place where everyone in the sign language community can belong. I believe this is one step toward creating a place for everyone in the sign language community that includes not only the Deaf, but also the hard of hearing and hearing people as well.
Although I, a hearing person, served as the organizer for this event, in reality, the preparation and on-site operations were shared among everyone in the sign language community, including Deaf and hard-of-hearing staff.
■ Toward a place where Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing people can thrive regardless of their status
Sign language events held regularly in VRChat are organized freely by not only the Deaf, but also hard-of-hearing and hearing people.
However, until now, there haven't been any initiatives at VketReal where Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing people could play an active role regardless of their status. I have been attending VketReal since it was first held, and I have participated on the organizing side with other activity groups several times. I noticed that many people from the sign language community were coming to hang out even back then. We would meet at the VketReal venue, chat in sign language, and interact outside of just VRChat!
So, I thought, why not have a community at VketReal where everyone in the sign language community can be involved in the activities? That was one of the starting points! That's why, from the conceptual stage, I aimed to make it possible for Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing people to all work together on the event.
■ From application to the event
Actually, the concept itself had been around for about a year, and I had brought it up to some community members around March of this year to see if it was possible. However, we concluded that we weren't ready to move forward immediately due to a lack of preparation at that time.
So we decided to pass on the summer VketReal, and the next time we started moving was right after the summer Vket ended. Since this was our first exhibition as a sign language community, we gathered members who were centrally active—such as those who organize events—to discuss our policy, and we worked on creating posters and a system to connect the real world with VRChat!
By around mid-August, we had already created the following structure!
We judged that it was generally feasible and applied, and as a result, we were successfully able to exhibit. From there, we rushed to prepare posters, goods, and more! From the preparation stage, everyone who cooperated with me helped out in various ways, and we built this event together.
For things like the posters, I provided the initial rough plan, but after that, I left it entirely to the people in charge and just offered opinions from time to time. There were also staff members who handled ordering the goods.
We were able to hold this event because of everyone who helped out on the day and in the time leading up to it, so thank you all so much!
About the future
We achieved our initial goal of exhibiting at VketReal! ✨✨✨ But as for one of the goals within that, in terms of providing opportunities and a place where everyone can be active and interact, I hope to continue these activities and become a benchmark for everyone to start their own various activities in the same way!
So, I hope we can continue to participate in real-life events in the future! ✨✨✨
I would also like to take on the challenge of exhibiting at VketReal 2026 Summer, which will be held in the summer of 2026!Having held this event, we've identified various areas for improvement. Now that we can think about how to make it even more enjoyable for everyone than this time,I really want to work even haaaarder together with everyone! ♪♫
Related Information
These are articles and activities related to Kotohashiro. Please check them out too!
■ Kotohashiro's Activities
■ VR Sign Language Community
■ Studio Bagus - VRC Film Production Studio -
■ Platfom - Metaverse Photo Travel Magazine -