Gravesider is crowdfunding a mobile app to use augmented reality for cemetery tours, gravestone scans, costumed re-enactments and virtual memorial uploads.

SAUGERTIES, NY, UNITED STATES, October 17, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Often people wander through a cemetery, spot an intriguing headstone, and want to know more about its owner. The living may not be able to talk to the dead, but if one entrepreneur has her way, soon, the dead may be able to “talk” to the living.

Caylin Sanders, the Hudson Valley, New York-based founder of the new mobile app Gravesider, seeks to honor and memorialize ancestors and other historical figures through augmented reality (AR). The content will only be visible to the public when an app user physically scans a headstone with their mobile phone.

The interactive Gravesider AR app, now in development, will create augmented reality walking tours of cemeteries to form educational thematic "trails" — casting costumed actors in re-enactments of notable celebrities, historical figures, and unsung heroes. The app will also allow users to upload custom memorials with videos, music, or other media honoring their own loved ones.

Gravesider is currently crowdfunding on Indiegogo with 25% of their first 12k milestone raised. 50% of proceeds from the app will benefit local cemetery and landmark preservation, and all virtual memorials will be geo-mapped so users can search a directory of possible markers to scan.

Although focused on death, one shouldn't expect Gravesider to be only a somber experience. The app hopes to nurture a positive death-conscious community interested in genealogy and history but will also pay homage to the spiritual, paranormal, metaphysical and spooky side of death in their online shop — offering tickets to Halloween events, psychic readings, death-inspired art, mourning jewelry, and clothing for sale, to be as inclusive as possible.

Indiegogo investors will reap rewards including T-shirts, stickers and tote bags, a death-inspired music Spotify playlist, the new book "Memento Mori" (e-version) by Joanna Ebenstein - founder of Morbid Anatomy, the “Death Deck” game which facilitates serious death care conversations in a fun way, gift certificates to “A Weeping Widow Antiques and Oddities” for mourning jewelry, a digital spiritual journal from author and coach Jackie Kenner, individual and group readings from psychic medium Jocelyn Mackenzie, and invites to Gravesider’s events.

Ms. Sanders founded EscapeMaker, an Emmy-Award-winning local travel marketing service, celebrating its 24th anniversary in business and which has recently specialized in creating AR tours. Building on her background in theatre, she got the idea for the Gravesider app during the pandemic when her clients wanted to offer more socially distanced programming.

AR is poised to be a new model for sustainable tourism as people research their ancestral history. As a taphophile (a person who loves cemeteries), Sanders noticed that women, African American, Indigenous and immigrant stories were largely untold on headstones and in history books. "Everybody has a story. I want to ensure those stories live on,” comments Sanders. "People deal with death differently and our modern American culture all too often dismisses the grieving process entirely, says Sanders. Our ancestors may be gone, but thanks to augmented reality, they will never be forgotten."

To support the crowdfunder, visit Gravesider at https://igg.me/at/gravesider. The campaign runs through the day after Halloween, Friday, November 1st (Day of the Dead), with a goal to launch by next year.

Caylin Sanders
Gravesider
+1 877-997-2726
gravesiderapp@gmail.com
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Gravesider Cemetery Tours Mobile App

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