Can You Bring A Camera To Concert Venues

Amy LaMeyer'south passion lies at the intersection of slick virtual experiences and refreshingly raw live concerts. Equally an enthusiastic proponent of virtual reality technology who also advises companies on their VR strategies, her 2 worlds collided in December when she nearly attended Live Nation and NextVR's streamed functioning of Thievery Corp. Even for a diehard music junkie who attends over a dozen concerts a year, the careful blending of cutting-edge tech and visceral mic-rocking created something entirely new, novel, and unexpectedly engaging.

"For a new engineering it was surprisingly proficient!" LaMeyer said in her wrap-up of the experience. "I'll acknowledge information technology, I got up and danced. I may have fifty-fifty clapped and whistled. This is the future and I'm eagerly awaiting more."

LaMeyer's toe-tapping experience offers only a pocket-sized glimpse at how VR is now revolutionizing live music. Since the sudden resurgence of affordable VR hardware a few years agone, content providers take been clamoring for new ways to please the optics, ears, and equilibriums of this new audience. Understandably, content providers have turned to the larger-than-life on-stage spectacle of live concerts to fill up this niche.

Last yr, Live Nation teamed with Citi and NextVR to broadcast dozens of concerts in VR, and since LaMeyer'southward groundbreaking VR experience concluding winter, Live Nation and NextVR accept likewise broadcasted an array of shows.

A portion of those shows, including the Slash and Little Steven concerts, included Backstage with Citi – behind-the-scenes backstage footage that follows the artists as they have the phase – in VR, of grade. Slash & Friends were the first artists to exist showcased in the Backstage with Citi VR series. In improver to performing live, in VR at the LA Zoo, fans were as well invited to take a virtual journey with Slash as he explored the zoo, interacted with reptiles and shared his dear for beast conservation. That programming is the event of a partnership between Citi, LiveNation and NextVR.

"Live Nation continues to evangelize fans unparalleled access to amplify their live music experience," said Kevin Chernett, Executive Vice President, Global Partnerships and Content Distribution for Live Nation. "VR has the power to deepen the fans human relationship with the artist while providing admission to fans around the world to feel the energy of live when they tin't physically be at that place."

Concerts aren't the merely live events to get some 360-degree virtual love. Pro basketball is already dissemination 1 game a calendar week in VR, and professional hockey, racing, and baseball leagues are following adjust with their ain experiences. The skillful news? This is just the tip of the iceberg for live VR. The even better news? Teams of content creators, artists, and technologists are already working on clever new ways to craft and deliver the next generation of these centre-popping live VR experiences.

A New Type of Concert Feel

Alive VR concerts offering a variety of benefits. Since cameras are mostly positioned onstage, viewers don't and then much watch the concert every bit experience it – from the point of view of the band. For much of a VR concert, the participant is looking from stage into the crowd, offering an approximation of what it feels like to be the vocalizer or guitarist during a bear witness. It's meliorate than the best seat in the house, in other words.

There are other perks. For her second VR concert – a multi-band operation at an iconic venue in Boston, LaMeyer said she was able to be transported from her living room in San Francisco to the venue, which she had visited many times. Not but that, but during a pause in the performance, she checked on social media and saw that she knew several people in the audience. Using the camera's 180-degree view, she was able to look dorsum a few rows and see one of her friends from time to time. (Of course, another big benefit of the Citi-sponsored shows is the "Backstage" access too.)

VR concert experiences are likely to evolve besides. Wilson Standish, director of innovation for media agency Hearts & Science, said that directors of VR concerts can "jump from camera to camera in a way that tells a story." Other elements, like animation or augmented reality could likewise be brought in. The format is a wide-open up sail at the moment, awaiting a dose of creative inspiration.

The Hereafter is Virtual

Over the by few years, the tech community has accustomed that VR was poised to go mainstream. The question was what grade it would accept. While many assumed that VR would primarily exist a vehicle for games and movies, a recent poll by the Consumer Engineering Association found that consumers' about popular suggestions for VR content were for concerts, sports and exercise. Information from Greenlight Insights' 2017 survey also plant that 65% of consumers said they were interested in live events and 58% said they were interested in sporting events. That compares to 65% for gaming.

Alexis Macklin, an analyst with Greenlight Insights, said that the younger consumers were, the more than likely they were interested in using VR for alive events. "Then we'll encounter this market grow as these younger generations grow as well," she said. In a recent Citi Research report, analysts predict that the overall virtual reality/augmented reality market could reach $692 billion by 2025 and keep to increment after that.

Citi, Live Nation and NextVR capitalized on this interest with its current concert series, which is likely to feature at least 10 shows over the form of a year. The concert experiences aren't only multi-camera broadcasts of the shows though, they also feature fourth dimension backstage with the artists before they striking the stage.

Live Nation for ane is not new to streaming; the visitor streamed more than than 600 concerts online. Simply while traditional Internet-based streaming is much like Goggle box, VR is more like really attention the concert – or fifty-fifty meliorate in some ways since the view is likely to be an comeback unless yous happen to exist correct up against the stage. Plus, you don't have to drive dwelling house when information technology's over.

One area for improvement is to be able to buy the shows on a pay-per-view footing, after the fact. Right now, considering of copyright concerns, fans can only watch the shows in real time. "If I couldn't make it to the evidence and so I could sentry it on VOD," said LaMeyer, who added that she'd likewise like to re-watch shows that she attended.

Meanwhile, almost no one is convinced that VR will kill the concert manufacture. Correct at present, VR is being presented as an culling for concertgoers, only non a replacement. "Such a big part of a concert is the audience and the free energy that they give, which the creative person is feeding off of," said Standish.

Like video calls versus in-person meetings though, VR concerts might turn out to be the next-best affair compared to the alternative. That said, Standish was enthusiastic about the potential to bring performances to a wider audience. "They will open up the experience to people all over the world who might not have the hazard to physically get to the venue," said Standish. "That's a win-win for the artist and fan."

Be in the front row on on-stage for unprecedented access to some of your favorite shows! For more means to experience free, exclusive Alive Nation concerts in virtual reality, visit Backstage with Citi.

Source: https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2017/07/live-concerts-take-virtual-virtual-reality/

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