ENGAGE XR Holdings Plc hosted a stellar virtual reality (VR) concert on Thursday featuring legendary artist Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook).
The world-renowned DJ showcased some of his top songs for his “Eat Sleep VR Repeat” concert. Fatboy Slim and ENGAGE XR hosted the concert free of charge to attendees.
Thousands of people attended the multi-instalment show on the Metaverse platform. The six shows lasted 45 minutes each and featured some of his top hits, including ‘Weapon of Choice’, ‘Rockafeller Skank’, ‘Right Here, Right Now,’ and ‘Praise You’.
David Whelan, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, ENGAGE XR, said,
“While there have been music performances in the metaverse before, the Fatboy Slim concert took things to the next level with many different areas to explore, visuals and audio that enhanced attendees’ senses making the virtual event an almost hypnotic experience. [Cook] wanted to make sure that his fans were treated to the VR event of the year and he didn’t disappoint”
The news comes as ENGAGE launched its ENGAGE LINK enterprise platform for hosting Metaworlds, a series of interlinked, persistent immersive spaces. Spaces on the ENGAGE LINK platform are ‘Plazas’ purpose-built for entertainment, creative collaboration, education, and a main ‘Central’ location.
Whelan added,
“The Fatboy Slim concert demonstrates the versatility and capabilities of VR and how corporations to creatives can build their own worlds within ENGAGE to be used for entertainment, business engagements and so much more.”
The concert is available to view across Meta Quest, Pico, Valve Index’s SteamVR, and HTC VIVE headsets.
ENGAGE XR: Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice
In a post-concert press conference with global media, Garry Blackburn, Owner of Anglo Management and Manager for Fatboy Slim, discussed his experiences with the ENGAGE XR platform.
When asked by XR Today about his experience with immersive concerts compared to live shows, he said that his team was learning with the new format.
“Just by coming to [the concert] this evening, we’re learning the language of VR and how to behave in the environment,” Blackburn said.
He noted how the immersive environment created a strong sense of presence compared to pre-recorded concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Explaining, he said,
“This is much better than some of the things we did in lockdown, where we recorded concerts and streamed them without an audience. We tried to sell tickets for them and other artists as well. While those projects did okay, they didn’t have the interactivity and sense of community a gig provides. [VR] provides you with that and enables you to leave the limit of your own imagination of where it can be”
Blackburn added that design teams and ENGAGE XR worked seamlessly to explore Fatboy Slim’s “iconography of his whole career.” Designers could incorporate many characters from videos and album sleeves, and integrate lyrical and visual elements from past songs.
VR Concerts: Right Here, Right Now
Blackburn also honoured the teams that organised the virtual concert and explained the benefits of using VR for concerts.
He told the press that Fatboy Slim had wrapped up a 14-show tour across the UK, playing three shows each weekend. For the live concerts, the artist performed for roughly 6,000 people each night “with an amazing atmosphere.”
Speaking to journalists, Whelan explained that Cook had been developing his reputation for “over the last 30 years.” Because of this, it was crucial to choose the right platform for the event.
“People expect the quality of the work he’s done over the last 30 years, and you want to make sure that you can live up to that standard,” Whelan said.
Speaking further about Apple’s upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset, he said that iTunes was a big industry for ENGAGE XR. This could allow potential revenue streams for artists in the future, along with immersive gigs.
He explained further,
“This could be a way to bring a lot of revenue back to those artists, where they can charge a good fee to get into these events. Artists hosting events for 20,000 to 30,000 people received a set amount of money, but conceivably, you could get millions of people all experiencing this at the same time. Each could pay $10 dollars and potentially make just as much with one fantastically attended concert as with a world tour in the future”
Blackburn added that aside from commerce, VR platforms allowed Cook to communicate with audiences. He said that it was “another layer to the communication and storytelling that goes on.”
Attendees at live shows created a “powerful” sense of community, but could also be replicated at immersive shows. For Blackburn, VR had potentially fewer barriers to entry.
A Metaverse for Musicians?
When asked by XR Today about the potential for further Web3 integrations, including blockchain-based streaming platforms such as Opus and Audius, Blackburn voiced support for such technologies.
He explained it would be “amazing” and could potentially tackle some of the concerns in the music industry over fair compensation to artists. Web3 platforms could also disrupt collaboration between labels and rights, he added.
He told XR Today,
“If you launched a new album here, you could record it and play it in this context, and people could consume and own bits of it. There’s a whole new economy, isn’t it? It’s a whole new system.”
Blackburn explained that album sales had fallen “massively” over the last few years as most turned to music streaming services.
Concluding, Blackburn said,
“With the record industry, when CDs and cassettes were gone, the only way these artists could make any money—notwithstanding artists like Beyonce—is by constantly touring. You see bands in their 60s and 70s still touring because they need the money. I think this is one way that [Web3 and the Metaverse] could be a way for them to generate money much more easily with touring in the future”
The concert comes as many XR firms host an impressive lineup of artists on one of the fastest-growing platforms for art and music—the Metaverse.
Musicians such as the Foo Fighters, Justin Bieber, Ozzy Osbourne, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Ariana Grande, MUSE, and others have launched virtual concerts across the Metaverse.
Many have turned to immersive platforms to engage fans with novel solutions such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), music sharing, contests, and exclusive wearables.
To commemorate the rise of such Web3 efforts, the MTV Music Awards hosted a ‘Best Metaverse Category’ for artists. These showcased the work of musicians leveraging Web3 technologies for their works, with Korean K-Pop group BLACKPINK winning the esteemed award.
Snoop Dogg and Eminem would later perform MTV’s first-ever metaverse performance for audiences.
