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This Week In Music: The Online Experience Is Gaining Momentum As Live Shows Are Dormant

Bruce Haring
·2-min read

This weekend, there’s a major music festival going on. Online, that is.

While many artists have taken to Facebook Watch, Zoom or Twitter to do solo events, there are also opportunities emerging in gaming to reach a larger audience. Case in point: this weekend, the Lavapalooza music festival is featuring such acts as 100 Gecs, Aaron Cartier, and TNGHT on Minecraft.

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The performance streams are also available on Discord and Twitter. Those who join in with their avatar will see six hours of music performances, visit t-shirt vendors, and jump into a virtual mosh pit, all in an amphitheater created by Minecraft blocks.

Concert producer and developer Max Schramp and his team at Open Pit launched at the end of April. He told CBC news in Canada that “The majority of the people who are attending our events are fans of music and not gamers,” he said. “Lots of people will just buy Minecraft specifically for these events and then never use it again.”

Minecraft isn’t the only forum offering music concerts. In April, Fortnite hosted rapper Travis Scott, who drew 12 million people for a 10-minute concert.

While no one is suggesting that online shows will replace the live music experience, the concert industry is likely more than a year away from any kind of comeback, and may look far different when it does return.

 

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