Live Events Universe Beware - The Metaverse is Here
27.7M unique viewers joined the Travis Scott + Fortnite live concert event
The “metaverse” may be the gateway to virtual events and participation
Traditional Event producers and designers are going to need to adapt to the future of truly digital events
The Travis Scott / Fortnite Effect
On April 20th 2020, during the peak of the Covid-19 "shelter in place” mandate, “Astronomical” was announced. A collaboration between Epic Games, the studio behind Fortnite, and Travis Scott, the event invited gamers to participate in a larger-than-life virtual concert experience featuring new and old music from Travis Scott. To pre-seed the event, special loading screens and in-game cosmetics featuring Travis and his signature style became available to Fortnite gamers.
On April 23rd over 12 million people viewed the 10-minute concert in real time. After four more replays in three days, a total of 27.7 million unique viewers joined to experience the Travis Scott avatar performance (source: Pitchfork). For comparison, Coachella generally hosts about 99,000 people per day, over six days (Source: Insider). The Fortnite and Travis Scott partnership was all the buzz back in April, and the success of their virtual concert proved that there was a real market for this kind of experience.
Enter the Metaverse
The idea of a “metaverse” was new to me until recently, however the concept has been around for a while. An in-depth history and understanding of what the metaverse is and can be is found here - MatthewBall.vc. Essentially, the metaverse “is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet” according to Wikipedia.
Or simply put, a fictional, virtual universe.
I can’t help but to think back to my pre-teen years in the early 90’s; I would stay in touch with friends from other areas of the country via instant messenger and AIM chat. Pre-teens in 2020 are congregating in massive crowds in the Fortnite universe, as shown by the number of viewers “Astronomical” recorded. Now, if we remove the shooter component from Fortnite, and make it a place for people and their avatars to meet up, watch live shows, shop, and encounter new people, we have opened the gate to enter the metaverse. A new way of social sharing and interaction.
That’s great, but what does it have to do with Live Events?
On June 10th TechCrunch announced that in April, Wave had joined forces with Warner Music Group and Jay Z’s Roc Nation to produce concerts with the talent roster. Wave has raised millions in venture capital and is backed by individual investors such as Alex Rodriguez, and Twitter co-founder Kevin Lin. Epic Games won’t disclose the revenue numbers from the Travis Scott concert, however analysts estimate revenue earnings somewhere in the 9-figure range. The economics for virtual events seems to be much better when compared to live events; with virtual events at scale, you can host an event for 3 million people, at $2 per ticket. Also, let’s not forget, the cheaper cost of the production process, lack of venue fees, and the ability to sell merchandise with a lower staff count, it starts to make more and more sense. The artists make more money, and the consumers don’t have to pay as much for an experience, that in the Travis Scott example, could not have existed in real life.
What’s the larger impact in the future?
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic it seemed as though every event and experiential agency was racing to solve the client need for “Virtual Events”, and it all felt very forced. Event companies don’t have the technical chops, and the technology companies don’t have the live event experience. It started to feel like a race to the bottom to see who could “fake it to make it” to solve this new problem for their clients first.
In hindsight, it seems like there was a dark horse emerging this whole time - the gaming industry. With an existing built-in audience, deep knowledge of that audience, and unconventional engagement tactics, they seem to have taken a leg up on the competition.
That is, until Facebook inevitably puts its resources into the metaverse and eats everyone’s lunch, much like we saw it do to Snapchat.
In the end, people will still crave live music and physical interaction with other like-minded fans in spaces outside of the virtual world. However, it would be a mistake to overlook the metaverse now, and we as experience creators have a unique opportunity to shape its new future.
I find it only fitting to leave this on the infamous misquote from Demi Lovato, which she incorrectly attributed to Buddha; “change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful”
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