On December 5th, 2025, members of the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) communities gathered together to celebrate the incredible work ETC students have done this semester.
Fall Festival is an ETC tradition. Started by Randy Pausch as part of the Building Virtual Worlds (BVW) course, it was originally a stage showcase in McConomy Auditorium before eventually taking the shape of an invitation-only carnival that takes over the entire ETC building.
Festival spotlights not just the work first-year students do in Building Virtual Worlds but also the projects they created in other Immersion Semester courses like Visual Story. Second-year students also get a chance to show off the projects they’ve been working on all semester, in addition to the interactive experiences they’ve developed in courses like Experience Design.
Guests spent the evening enjoying the interactive experiences, games, student projects, and short films student teams created during the Fall Semester. You can learn more about the work on display on the 2025 Festival website, which also includes a recording of the livestream.