Related Articles
The opening of the Las Vegas Sphere this September will be a major moment in the history of live music entertainment, but it’s not the only big innovation on the horizon. Entrepreneurs all across the globe are looking for other ways to reshape the concert experience and justify the record-high prices that fans are now asked to fork over for tickets. Early versions of many of these ideas have already been rolled out, and others are still in the exploratory phase. We spoke with Strangeloop Studios Co-Founder Ian Simon, who has worked with everyone from the Weeknd to Kendrick Lamar and SZA, about some of the biggest and boldest concepts
Augmented Reality
In the near future, Simon predicts, augmented-reality goggles will become commonplace at concerts, collapsing the wall between real and virtual events. “You could be watching a concert that’s taking place in front of you in the real world, but it has added 3D elements that are peppered around it,” he says. “They’ll be not just visible to people, but also manipulatable by people that aren’t actually at the concert itself. For example, there might be real-world fireworks, but you’ll be able to augment them with AR fireworks and certain specifics of the design of that moment will be voted on by fans at home.”
Original Digital Avatars
Many Americans haven’t heard of the South Korean digital avatar group MAVE: or Japanese hologram singer Hatsune Miku, but both have released popular songs and amassed real-life fans. It’s a model that could easily cross over the Pacific into America. “Over the next few tears, the tools used to create 3D animation are going to be democratized similar to the way music-making tools were democratized,” says Simon. “We’re going to see this whole new wave of younger users able to build their own characters, and also create their own virtual experiences. We’ve seen this already with Gorillaz, but that’s really just the beginning of what’s possible. That’s because we’ve spent a lot of the past few years trying to take physical experiences into the digital world. We’re now going to see more digital experiences people enjoy and find a way to express them in the physical world. This will be revolutionary for the efficiencies of touring since, if you get people excited about seeing an avatar perform, you can do 20 markets in one night and you won’t need to lug your gear around the world.”
Digital Rock Icons
For the past year, crowds have been flocking to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London to see digital avatars of ABBA play concerts —and paying for the experience. As boomer acts like Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones approach retirement, shows like this will likely spread out all across the planet. “ABBA worked because they managed to make it a compelling experience that wasn’t competitive with seeing artists live,” says Simon. “It was additive. That’s going to be crucial to getting audiences excited. If the Stones try this one day, they can’t market it as a pale facsimile of an original Stones show. It’ll need to stay true to the spirit of their shows and have its own value.”
Immersive Audio
The days of punishingly loud concerts that pulverize your ears and leave no space for nuance will soon be behind us. The technology underpinning Dolby Atmos surround sound is largely used in movie theaters now, but it will soon spread to the live music universe. “It’ll give you an immersive effect since we now have the ability to control spatial audio,” says Simon. “This is so much more than a standard two-channel stereo output. You’ll have a cinematic experience. I’m a little less bullish on audience members wearing headphones to achieve this though. When I see a concert, I like to hear what the person next to me is hearing. I don’t think I’d want to put in earbuds to have a different experience than other people.”
3D LED Walls
3D glasses have been around for generations, but advancements in high-resolution LED walls are changing the game. “Human artists can perform right next to digital avatars when fans wear passive 3D glasses, not goggles, and get an incredible holographic experience from a 3D wall,” says Simon. “The tools available to us as digital designers have dramatically increased over the past ten years. And we’re only going to see more availability of this product in the coming years, and it’ll become less onerous for venues all over the world to provide that kind of infrastructure.”
