Cumbria’s first of its kind digital and gaming hub has officially opened.
Levels, a £4.6 million redevelopment of Whitehaven’s former Whittles building on Duke Street, has today opened its doors to the public.
The new hub is made up of four floors of state of the art technology, alongside a café and board game break out spaces.
It boasts boasting everything from a VR arcade featuring vests that simulate in-game sensations like gunshots to a motion capture and podcasting suite, an Esports gaming area, immersive classroom and training spaces and more.
But who is Levels actually for? Is it for adults and children alike? Or is it just a space for schoolkids? How much does it cost to visit? What can people actually do there? How can people get involved and access the hub?
What is Levels?
Levels is a new gaming and digital hub that is a £4.6 million redevelopment of the former Whittles furniture building in Whitehaven.
The building has four floors and each floor contains different kinds of technology for people to engage with, including:
- Ground floor: Café, aviation simulator, a Lauren AI customer services artificial intelligence chatbot and Esports gaming area
- First floor: Immersive training and classroom environments and the North’s largest VR arcade including racing and co-op and competitive gaming including virtual escape rooms
- Second floor: Immersive VR training and education spaces and a podcasting and motion capture space
- Third floor: Board games break out space
The new hub has been funded by £3.3 million secured from Sellafield Ltd Social Impact Multiplied (SiX) scheme, £800,000 from BT, and £500,000 from social impact property developers BEC.
It has been developed by BEC, with funding support from Sellafield Ltd and BT.
Carlisle-based business VR Gateway will operate the hub.
Levels is both a space to encourage digital education and training and a space for entertainment through things like Esports
Who can visit Levels? Is it for all ages?
Levels is accessible to people of all ages, but in different ways.
The VR Arcade is able to be booked for those aged 12-plus and different groups, schools, colleges, students and work place groups will able to hire out rooms or facilities like the podcasting space on site.
The esports space is able to be hired by professional teams and organisations and the Esports Student Championships is free for young people aged 13 to 18.
Levels will be available for event bookings between 8am and 8pm.
The VR arcade and café will typically be open to the public from 4pm to 7pm Wednesday to Friday and from noon to 7pm on Saturdays and Sundays, with additional hours available by appointment for schools, courses, and private bookings.
Each space will be staffed during bookings and organised sessions.
What kind of technology is on offer at Levels?
The new digital and gaming hub is made up of four floors of state of the art technology.
On the ground floor, visitors can expect a café, board game and social space, an esports gaming area and Lauren AI – a customer services artificial intelligence chatbot.
The esports gaming area features several high end computers open to both students aged 12 to 18 and professional teams wishing to privately hire the space.
On the first floor, immersive training and classroom environments sit alongside the VR arcade.
Each virtual reality classroom and training space contains Meta Quest 3 Virtual Reality Headsets and MX Ink, a stylus that writes, draws, sketches, and can trace real objects to turn them into virtual models.
The classroom spaces can be turned into immersive virtual school trips, give students the chance to ‘meet’ AI versions of historical figures and create multi-sensory, interactive environments and gamified learning.
Levels also has an education suite that features 31 high end development grade PCs suitable for ICT lessons, graphic design and programming. The suite is available for events and private hire.
The classroom and training spaces will be open to school groups, after school clubs and for training sessions. Trained staff and tutors will be on hand.
The VR Arcade features everything from racing and flight simulators, to free-roam VR, featuring haptic feedback gear that allows players to feel in-game sensations – like gunshots, heat, cold or vibrations.
People can play solo, or team up with friends – free roam VR allows players to move freely through virtual worlds to explore, dodge and interact with friends in a different reality.
Levels has several free roam games on offer supported by immersive haptic feedback vests, and mavrick striker VR guns on.
The BHaptics vest is a high-tech haptic feedback device designed for immersive virtual reality and gaming experiences.
Equipped with multiple vibration motors, it provides real-time tactile sensations that sync with in-game actions, making users feel impacts, gunfire, and environmental effects. The vests fit a size 26 to 58 inch waist.
People will also be able to access the YAW Aviation simulator on site, which is considered the most advanced virtual aviation training service available.
It has a full-size embedded reality cockpit in a motion platform with a high range of motion to give a real feeling flight experience.
Realistic YAW VR racing simulators will also be available in the VR arcade, with 360° rotation and multi-directional movement and professional-grade Moza R5 racing wheels and pedals.
On the second floor training and classroom spaces sit alongside podcasting, recording, projection backing space and audio labs and motion capture space.
The motion capture facilities on site include suits and gloves including perception Neuron 3, featuring innovative 3-finger capture gloves and 17 lightweight capture points around the body for capturing motion in 60 FPS.
All gaming in the hub is powered by high-end PCs built by Carlisle Computer Systems, featuring Intel Core i7 processors, 64GB of DDR5 memory, and RTX 5080 graphics cards.
LEVELS also has a large immersive room with an interactive touch wall for private hire and school groups.
Will people have to pay to access Levels?
While some parts of Levels will be free to access for certain professional and school groups – each space at Levels will have its own pricing.
The VR arcade and private or corporate hire of the podcasting and training rooms will be paid-for services.
Esports teams can access the esports zone and competitions free of charge.
Educational and vocational training, including school use of the education suite, is free, and VR arcade tickets are able to be offered as learning incentives.
VR arcade sessions can be booked without a membership, but age categories are applied to games, so children will not be able to access games that are not suitable for them.
Will the technology be updated as time goes on?
Developer BEC said the technology in Levels will be reviewed regularly in a bid to keep the space at the forefront of new technology developments.
No plans have yet been revealed on how often this review will take place and what it will involve.
How will the esports area work?
The esports area is made up of several high end computers built by Carlisle Computer Systems and is open to both students aged 12 to 18 and professional teams wishing to privately hire the space.
Levels will hosts league events for agames for both the local Levels Leagues and national Student Champs.
The Esports Student Championships is free for young people aged 13 to 18 with seasons running from September to December and January to March, with nights set for Wednesdays at 6pm.
Students will be able to access exclusive league nights, practice sessions, and podcast features where plays and commentary take centre stage.
League games like Rocket League, League of Legends and Valorant will be preloaded onto computers in the space.
People can also spectate sessions from the café.
What will the VR Arcade be like?
Levels has the largest VR Arcade in the north and one of the best VR facilities in the UK.
It has state-of-the-art VR stations, haptic feedback equipment, which allows you to feel in-game sensations like gunshots, heat, cold or vibrations, free-roam VR arenas and racing and aviation motion simulators.
The space is suitable for those aged 12 plus and games on offer will include racing games, lazer tag, aviation training, different kinds of escape rooms, as well as different sports, shooter, rhythm, platformer and adventure games.
Game themes will cover everything from horror, to battling aliens, surviving zombie apocalypses to exploring the ocean.
Some games will be solo player games while others will be suitable for groups to book and play together.
The VR arcade systems will use pre-loaded games appropriate to age categories.
Developer BEC said there are also plans to host community gaming nights featuring independent games via game marketplace Steam, subject to commercial licensing.
What kind of workshops and training will be on offer at Levels?
Levels will offer digital workshops suitable for different ages and abilities.
Its special education suite which has space large enough for 32 people and other educational and training room spaces for schools and private hire.
Workshops on offer will cover things like sound engineering, 3D animation, game design motion capture, and more.
Training courses on offer will cover everything from CV building to film making, game design, using adobe express, management, AI for business, public speaking, communicating, podcasting.
VR training courses are also on offer, alongside VR art gallery opportunities for people to show their artwork virtually and gamified learning sessions.
Workshops will typically be held in the evenings and off-term. Developer BEC said Levels will mostly offer low or zero cost workshops where possible.
Will Levels have a membership or will it be pay as you go?
While people will be able to make individual bookings at Levels is will also have a membership system.
The Levels membership will cost £12 per year and provide key-card access.
Membership is required for esports use and vocational education courses, and members will receive benefits and promotions in the café.
Parents can top up accounts online, set spending limits, and restrict access to certain food options, and membership cards can also be used directly at the café till.
Will there be a balance between school use and public use? Or is it just for schoolkids?
Developer BEC have confirmed that Levels will balance education, public access and private hire.
But it added that the core focus of Levels is educational delivery, which it said will always take priority.
