Hitting the VR dance floor in Linden Labs's Sansar.Linden Labs"Friday's event really shows what virtual events will do and what they can enable: immersion, connection, and access on a massive scale,” Altberg told me via email. Monstercat: Call of the Wild Experience is a VR space where the music label will host artist meet and greets, giveaways, and more. Altberg didn’t give me exact numbers but over a thousand people watched the show in VR via Sansar.“Tens of thousands of people watched the concert across Twitch, Mixer, and Huya, and over a thousand people around the world attended the event in Sansar - across 6 continents, 65 countries, and 675 cities. Fans feel more connected and immersed in the music they love, while artists, in turn, effectively reach more people and places in a single day than they'd reach on a real-life tour. “
Monstercat artist Austin “Au5” Collins performed during the VR experience and found it to exhibit qualities of a real life club performance.The State of VR in the Early 2000s. After so many capable devices on the market and so many let downs that didn’t truly capture the audience they deserved, virtual reality didn’t see much development in the early 2000s. Virtual Reality was at the background in the development of new technology. It took a step back, letting personal devices, such as computers, laptops, iPods, smartphones and tablets take over, which may very well have been the right step. With the development of new technologies, a new door was opened for virtual reality, because now head-tracking and capable displays were cheaper than ever before. However, it wasn’t before one start-up company mentioned the idea, that Virtual Reality truly took off on the consumer’s market.
“It's incredibly immersive; I can show stage presence very much like I do while playing an in-person live set,” Collins said. “I can also see genuine crowd responses from other VR users as well as live feedback in a live chat from desktop users, which combined gives me a sense of attention and direction. Afterwards, I got to jump in the crowd, talk and interact with people and feel their excitement, which are some of my favorite things to do after my shows!”
Monstercat is no stranger to video games. The label released a platinum record by EDM DJ Marshmello, who previously collaborated with Epic Games to do a live music set within popular battle royale game Fortnite. IQ Mag reported that the Fortnite event was the most-attended concert in history and Sansar gives Linden Labs an opportunity to capitalize on that excitement with regularly produced content.READ ALSO:
“With this show, we married live music with gaming in a meaningful way," Altberg siad. "Thanks to Sansar, fans can unlock exclusive merchandise and access based on the tickets they purchase. They can also participate in streamer-led challenges and complete quests to win special prizes. We stepped through an exciting door with Monstercat, and with more shows on the horizon, we will continue to change the future of live events."
The Royals Are Also Using It. You know that virtual reality is big when highly prominent people are also getting in on it. In March 2018, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle honored International Women's Day by encouraging young women to study science and technology. In the process, they attended a school and tested out a virtual reality set. The couple had a positive experience with virtual reality. They both appeared to enjoy learning about the technology and how the headset works.