Avirtual concert, also calledV-concert orvirtual live, refers to a performance in which the performers are represented byvirtual avatars. Virtual concerts can take place in real life, where digital representations of the performers are projected in on stage, or within fully digitalvirtual worlds. Performers in virtual concerts may represent real individuals, but can also be entirely fictitious characters.[1][2][3]
Real-life virtual concerts are seen globally, for instance inSouth Korea where hologram performances by groups such asGirls' Generation have attracted thousands of fans, or inLondon with theABBA Voyage concert residency selling over 1 million tickets in both 2023 and 2024.[4][5]
More recently, virtual concerts have taken place invideo games. Games likeFortnite Battle Royale,Roblox, andMinecraft have been used by artists as venues to reach wider audiences and offer interactive experiences for attendees.[6][7]
Within theK-pop music industry, V-concerts were first introduced by several South Korean record labels such asSM Entertainment andYG Entertainment. In 1998, SM Entertainment attempted to kick start its firstholographic debut withH.O.T. (a now-defunct boy band), but failed to do so.[8]
Since the 2000s, a combination of an old stage technique calledPepper’s Ghost and modern visual effects technologies has been used to place hologram-like portrayals of artists and animated characters on stage.[9]
At the2006 Grammy Awards, thevirtual bandGorillaz performed live using holograms of their animated characters. Projected on stage using transparent screens, the holograms performed “Hung Up” alongsideMadonna and “Feel Good Inc.” withDe La Soul, blending real-life performers with virtual ones.[10][11]
In 2009, Japanese virtual idolHatsune Miku held her first live performance using semi-holographic technology developed byCrypton Future Media, in which the idol’s projected image was transported between three on-stage transparent screens as she performed. Since then, her concert technology has evolved to use layered screens and multiple projections to produce a 3-D effect.[12]
In 2012, 15 years after his death,Tupac Shakur made an appearance atCoachella withDr. Dre andSnoop Dogg, using a 3-D image of Tupac and the Pepper’s Ghost effect, allowing the other performers to walk around him and seemingly interact with him. He was programmed to engage with the Coachella audience and reference the festival as he spoke, despite dying a few years before the festival was established in 1999.[9][13]
Within the same year across the world, South Korea'sSM Entertainment hosted the S.M.ART Exhibition in August 2012 to showcase the various ways technology can be used in entertainment. The event included a live performance bySHINee featuring holographic 3-D images of the band members.[14][15]
On January 5, 2013, SM Entertainment also held a virtual concert inGangnam District with life-sized images ofGirls’ Generation projected onto the stage, attracting thousands of K-pop fans.[4] The company discussed opening a V Theater, or virtual reality theatre for hologram performances, yet the theater never opened.[16]
Meanwhile, after its first virtual concert featuringPsy's "Gangnam Style" took off at theCOEX Convention & Exhibition Center in May 2013, the South Korean record labelYG Entertainment announced that it plans to establish 20 venues for virtual performances of its K-pop singers by the year 2015 in North America, Europe, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand.[17]
On July 20, 2013, YG Entertainment launched a permanent virtual concert at theEverland theme park inYongin, South Korea. Under the slogan "K-Pop Hologram: YG at Everland", virtual performances include Psy's "Gentleman" and "Gangnam Style" as well as virtual concerts byBig Bang and2NE1.[18]
Back in the United States,Michael Jackson was “revived” for the2014 Billboard Music Awards using the Pepper's Ghost effect once again.[19][10] This production also included an impersonator, a scan of a 1997 mold of Jackson’s face, detailed costuming, special effects, and more to ensure accuracy of the virtual figure.[20]
The same year,M.I.A. andJanelle Monáe used the effect to "appear" at each other’s respective concerts in New York and Los Angeles, yet they did not attempt to look realistic; rather, they were projected as technological “holograms,” splitting into two figures and reuniting throughout the performance. Since then,Jenni Rivera’s image was projected at a 2016Day of the Dead event in Los Angeles, andJuan Gabriel was made a "hologram" in a 2017 performance shortly after his death.[10]
On May 27, 2022, the Swedishpop groupABBA began theABBA Voyage, a virtualconcert residency. The concerts feature virtualavatars (dubbed 'ABBAtars'), depicting the group as they appeared in 1979, and using vocals re-recorded by the group specifically for the show, accompanied by a live instrumental band on stage.[21] The concerts are held inABBA Arena, a purpose-built venue near theQueen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.[22] The digital versions of ABBA have been created withmotion capture and performance techniques with the four band members and the visual effects companyIndustrial Light & Magic, in what is the company’s first foray into music.
On December 2, 2023,KISS unveiled their digital avatars at the end of their final concert atMadison Square Garden in New York.[23] While the four members of KISS had left the stage, the avatars performed a song on-screen. The performance ended with the text "A NEW ERA BEGINS". The avatars were also designed byIndustrial Light & Magic (ILM) and used to announce a partnership withPophouse Entertainment to produce a future virtual concert residency similar to ABBA Voyage.[24]
Since the mid-2000s, virtual concerts have also been held invirtual worlds instead of physical locations. The first major band to perform live in a virtual world wasDuran Duran, who performed inSecond Life in 2006.[25][26] Another early Second Life concert claiming to be the "world's first virtual concert" was the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's 2007 performance, viewed by 100 randomly chosen Second Life users.[27] In the same year,Phil Collins appeared inGrand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories performing his single "In The Air Tonight"; the concert is accessible as part of the game.[28]
In January 2019, a virtual music festival called Fire Festival (named as a play on the infamous 2017Fyre Festival) was held on a dedicatedMinecraft server. Organized by Canadian producer Max Schramp, the event was held in support of LGBT suicide prevention organizationThe Trevor Project.[29] The following month, on February 2, EDM producerMarshmello held a ten-minute concert on the main map of third-person shooterFortnite Battle Royale. The concert was viewable to anyone playing the game during that time, and a special variant of its "Team Rumble" game mode withrespawns enabled was provided for the event.[30]
Virtual concerts grew in popularity through 2020 and 2021 due to restrictions set by theCOVID-19 pandemic that made it difficult to hold traditional concerts.[7] More concerts were held inFortnite featuring artists includingTravis Scott,[6]BTS,[31]Diplo,[32] andAriana Grande[33] as interactive experiences.Fortnite would continue to host virtual concerts on a smaller and more social-oriented side map called "Party Royale".[34] On April 16, 2020, American singer-songwriterSoccer Mommy collaborated withClub Penguin Rewrittenfangame to host an in-game concert for her albumColor Theory.[35]Roblox hosted in-game concerts byLil Nas X,Zara Larsson, andTwenty One Pilots, where the last concert allowed users to choose the setlist order and engage in a live chat with the band after the show.[36] On the social platformVRChat, a number of groups have organized digitalnightclubs and music festivals with live streamed DJ performances by users and producers, hosted in specially designed worlds on the platform that mimic real-life venues.[37][38][39]
Many virtual performances have begun experimenting withvirtual andaugmented reality. TheWave, a dedicated platform for virtual reality concerts, launched in 2017. Artists who have performed on the platform includeImogen Heap,[40]The Glitch Mob, andKill the Noise; the service shut down in 2021, with the company stating that it was focusing on distributing its productions via "popular streaming platforms" instead.[41][42] In August 2020, Canadian singerthe Weeknd collaborated with social media platformTikTok to hold an interactive augmented reality live stream titled "The Weeknd Experience" on various dates, with the first occurring on August 7, 2020.[43] Tomorrowland replaced its in-person festival with a virtual event known as "Tomorrowland Around the World", which featured filmed DJ performances composited into 3D stage environments rendered usingUnreal Engine, and combined withsimulated crowd noise and virtual spectators to create the footage for each performer.[44][45]
On July 14, 2023, the company namedAMAZE launched their VR concert application,[46] featuring real footage of artists in virtual worlds created usingUnreal Engine. The app currently offers access to free songs, as well as the option to purchase full VR concerts featuring artists likeMegan Thee Stallion,Upsahl,Ceraadi,Zara Larsson, andT-Pain. In 2024,SM Entertainment partnered with AMAZE to develop a studio in Seoul to produce VR concerts.[47]
On August 25, 2023, the video gameSky: Children of the Light set aGuinness World Record for''Most users in a concert themed metaverse hangout'', as 10,061 users joined an in-game concert of Norwegian singerAurora, all on the same server.[48]
On October 27, 2023, the startup namedSensorium premiered a show developed in collaboration withCarl Cox. The 30-minute show, titled 'Intermundium,[49]' showcases tracks created, produced, and performed by Carl Cox, who is represented through his avatar taking center stage during the performance. The show was made available in VR, VR-360 and 2D formats.
On November 22, 2023, it was announced thatEminem would make an appearance inFortnite during its Chapter 4 finale.[50] The Eminem show was part of 'the Big Bang Event',[51] which launched on December 2, 2023. The event attracted 10 millionFortnite players. However, the entire event's duration was only 10 minutes, with Eminem's performance lasting just 3 minutes.[52] Additionally, there were reports of difficulties in accessing the initial launch of the show.[53]
Production costs vary between types of virtual concerts, but specific cases display what funding these experiences can typically look like.
The 2012 ten-day S.M.ART Exhibition cost SE Entertainment 5.6 billion won, or $4.9 million to produce, while the 2013 virtual Girls' Generation concert cost around 200 million won, or over $180,000, per hologram.[15][16]
Tomorrowland's 2020 virtual concert, "Tomorrowland Around the World," cost around $10 million to produce with the need to pay artists for the gig, develop the digital stages, and more.[54]
The ABBA Voyage hologram show cost the band £140 million, or around $175 million to produce. To maximize income and recoup these costs through ticket sales, the show is scheduled to run least seven times a week until its London lease expires in 2026.[55]
AmazeVR, the virtual reality concert production company, had raised about $30.8 million by early 2022 after securing $15 million in funding from different investment companies.[56]
V-concerts have been criticized by K-pop fans because singers do not appear in person and are only electronically projected onto a screen. Some claim that V-concerts could possibly endanger the quality of live music.[57]
SM has been experimenting with the holographic performances for more than a decade, although its first attempt to make H.O.T., a now-defunct boy band, a holographic debut failed in 1998.
NIK released its holographic images of Psy in World IT Show in COEX on May 23 before opening the exclusive theater for K-Pop Hologram-YG at Everland in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province this month. The Everland showcase will include the holographic performances of Psy's "Gangnam Style" and "Gentleman" in July and add more holographic content from Big Bang and 2NE1 in September. After launching the Everland theater, it will establish some 20 venues for virtual performances of its K-pop singers in major theme parks or others in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and North American and Europe by 2015.
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