The Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) is a public IR variability survey of the Milky Way bulge and an adjacent section of the mid-plane, using ESO's 4.1m VISTA telescope. It will take 1929 hours, over a timespan of about 5 years, covering ~10^9 point sources within an area of 520 sq. deg, including 33 known globular clusters and ~350 open clusters. Here I provide a summary of the project's current status, as well as some first results.