MelodyVR might have begun as a startup looking to connect virtual reality (VR) users with their favourite music artists, providing immersive concert experiences, but the company has rapidly expanded its vision. After announcing the planned acquisition of Napster in 2020, that process has now been completed with MelodyVR planning to rebrand to Napster Group.
That acquisition saw MelodyVR purchase Napster for $70 million USD (£53m GBP) and as the latter is far more well known its name will be adopted – finalised later this month in a shareholder vote.
“Having recently completed the acquisition of Napster/Rhapsody, we have taken the decision to rename our parent company to Napster Group PLC. Given our objectives for the year ahead, which includes the launch of a new Napster branded music platform, we believe that renaming our Company will provide for greater global recognition of our business across both corporate and commercial channels,” said Anthony Matchett Group CEO in a statement
The group has plenty of plans to expand its presence as the go-to live music streaming service. The main one is the development of a new mobile app which will launch in Q4 2021. It’ll provide both streamed music and the immersive live music shows the company is known for. To aid these plans it’ll debut on the London stock market during February and has already raised a new investment of £6.48m ($8.9m) by issuing Loan Notes.
Commenting on the last 12 months as well as the upcoming year, MelodyVR co-founder and chief relationship officer, Steve Hancock told Access All Areas: “We grew exponentially during 2020 but, Covid aside, it was a year we were expecting to see a lot of growth from what we had planned in the live-live streaming space.
“I don’t see, unfortunately, the vaccine giving us a quick switch back to a 100,000 people in a field,” he continued. “Live stream with the physical attendance is what I think the future will look like. I think a physical tour model will be very heavily supplemented with live digital ticketing revenue be it 360 or 2D.”
MelodyVR has featured artists like Bebe Rexha, Wiz Khalifa, Imagine Dragons and Cypress Hill, with the app currently available for Oculus Quest and Oculus Go as well as on mobile. For further updates keep reading VRFocus.
Entering 2020, no one could have imagined the real-time metamorphosis which would occur on the digital frontier over the next 14 months. Those who had been heralding an “immersive revolution” likely saw their pioneering foresight rewarded to some degree, as both businesses and consumers were thrust into spontaneous adoption of unfamiliar trends.
In the realm of live music experience, a few content platforms shrewdly pivoted to meet demands, while, as the year progressed, power players and decision makers were forced to take seriously this previously ignored (and therefore largely non-existent) landscape.
Now, as we embark on the furtherance of that journey into 2021, we are at least afforded a small bit of perspective, gained from the meaningful virtual music experiences which did occur. Furthermore, there is enough user-adoption data to speak for itself, and the table appears set for virtual concerts to occupy at least some portion of the total market take, even once the world resembles its former self.
Just what percentage of the market they will occupy is the looming question. And what impending breakthroughs can we expect in the coming year? While not a definitive case-study, the below reflects a reasonably comprehensive snapshot of the current and near-future virtual concert ecosystem.
Virtual Livestreams
At the onset of stay-at-home orders, the internet played host to an onslaught of typical artist livestreams, most of which were not monetized, and many of which felt like nothing more than webcam rehearsals. Removing for a moment the semantics surrounding the term “virtual” as an apt delineator for what a typical livestreamed performance represents, a few artists managed to manufacture splashy online concert experiences which felt more immersive and nudged the medium slightly forward.
To wit, major pop acts like Dua Lipa and Gorillaz, along with indie-cult darlings Glass Animals, and even 72-year-old event-music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre all put forth meaningful livestream contributions last year in terms of attendance/revenue, spectacle, and just plain entertainment value.
Reports seem to indicate that these shows stacked-up with real-world event parameters, garnering significant participation from the artists’ respective fan-base(s), and boasting recoupment which vastly exceeds their production budgets. This is especially noteworthy, as it not only signifies that there’s viable business to be done during lockdown, but that a good percentage of any artist’s tribe is willing—even may prefer at present—to plop down dollars to watch the show from home.
What made these shows special, in particular—aside from obvious factors of them being established artists with huge fan-bases and major label production and marketing budgets—is that they were really the first to employ real-world staging and lighting techniques in a typical livestream format. This, in hindsight, serves as a no-brainer since the tech surrounding live concerts is arguably the highest form of live entertainment, and certainly what commands a premium price-point.
Given the healthy financials and public reaction to this format, it is safe to expect a tidal wave of copycats throughout 2021, which also runs the risk of consumer fatigue, just not any time soon. Furthermore, online enterprises like LiveNow and Veeps have emerged to assist with the streaming and ticketing components, quietly building the requisite user-base to eventually go mainstream.
VR Video:
There are also live-action VR video stalwarts like CEEK and MelodyVR (aka Napster?) still in the mix. While revolutionary in their conceit, neither service holds even a 4-star rating on any app store, with users objecting to both content resolution and streaming fidelity (some “concerts” are just a flat 2D stream with a graphic backplate). For companies which were founded several years ago, it registers as a collective fumble to not have further capitalized on these unprecedented market circumstances.
Platform-based Experiences
Gaming:
The next media sector to cause shockwaves across both the music and entertainment industries were established gaming platforms. Following up on their wildly popular pre-COVID concert with Marshmello, Epic Games’ Fortnite single-handedly redefined the conversation of virtual music events with their Travis Scott experience, and then later with another offering from LatinX superstar J Balvin. Not to be outdone, the user-generated online worlds of Roblox—with their Lil Nas X merch-moving extravaganza—along with the sandbox-style institution, Minecraft—where pop-up performances and virtual festivals regularly occur inside—each managed to cause a significant real-world stir.
It stands to reason, mind you, that these enterprises would be among the first to join the immersive concert party since they are so well-capitalized, and essentially just exploiting an existing captive audience. What will be particularly interesting to see, going forward, is if these events continue to serve as glorified marketing schemes, or rather, if they represent a substantial head start for each company on creation of their ownmetaverse.
Social VR:
Perhaps the most unquantifiable realm in the war to capture sequestered users’ attention, is that of platform-based Social VR. There are a multitude of consumer options, with users generally corralled into one or the other based on what their headset manufacturer promotes, or by word-of-mouth invitation.
Whatever the case, the landscape seems to have whittled down to a handful of real players: Venues (part of the Facebook/Oculus ecosystem, whose offerings have included shows from Steve Aoki, Jayden Smith and Major Lazer); AltspaceVR(regarded as the “original” social VR platform, now owned by Microsoft and becoming a favourite of entry-level developers to host virtual conferences and nightclubs); Sansar (a VR offshoot of the online Second Life platform, where well-known DJ dance parties and virtual EDM festivals are becoming commonplace); Wave (a pioneering VR music app-turned-social platform, whose virtual concert featuring The Weeknd reimagined social engagement); and, VRChat (an MMO-style social platform known for its whimsical avatar options and adult-centric environment).
Not without foibles, this market segment alone could warrant a breakout dissertation on the merits and prospects of each platform. Suffice to say, there is a lot of action inside these neo-virtual social clubs. With artists (and their management) getting hip to the opportunity to engage fans—often for competitive performance fees—along with users beginning to host their own gatherings where they can dance as avatars while interacting with old and new friends, alike, it’s safe to say we are just beginning to see the crossover potential of these worlds, not to mention the market ramifications.
Virtual Festivals:
Similar to established gaming platforms, certain established music festivals managed to execute a transmigration to the virtual realm in stunningly successful fashion. In fact, aside from premium livestreams (which are currently outliers to their format), the case can be made that this is the most successful type of virtual event to attract (or convert) erstwhile in-person attendees.
Of particular note, the hugely popular real-world music festival, Tomorrowland, was the first of its calibre to roll out a bespoke virtual version of itself. In what may retrospectively prove to have been a true “golden spike” moment, the event organizers profess to have sold over 1 million tickets. It was such a success, they did it again for New Year’s Eve, and are already teasing a year-round digital venue to host future shows. Not only does this revolutionize the virtual concert medium, but it sets the table for expansion and omnipresence for all major festivals, going forward. After all, no in-person festival could ever rival such attendance numbers.
Along those lines, one cannot speak about the at-large virtual concert landscape without making mention of the 2020 edition of Burning Man. Being traditionally scheduled later in the year, its directors had the luxury to outsource the festival’s transposition to a virtual realm to members of their loyal community. What resulted was a vast interconnected framework of different virtual venues (largely led by the creation of a central VR hub called BRCvr) which, in the end, seemingly all managed to coalesce. Truly, what was created was the world’s largest working metaverse. This is not to say there aren’t a slew of kinks to still work out (see: framework and hardware incompatibility, server performance issues, etc.). But it’s certainly one of the boldest steps yet to defining what a new normal could look like. Best of all, the project is still living online and can be visited and utilized throughout the year.
The unifying factor of all these platform-based venues and experiences is game engine technology. Whether using Unity or Unreal, or even some standalone in-house creation, the graphic eye-candy and user agency afforded by this technology are unparalleled. There are still purist concerns that performers inside game engine-derived shows are largely computer-generated avatars of the real-life figures. And, of course, if one has to download an app or file container in order to access the platform, it will be difficult to wrestle market share away from bigger players without a commensurate marketing budget.
Still, the pros seem to outweigh the cons here, particularly relating to the potential for interactive concert experiences, and especially so long as we are to remain socially-distanced.
Future Prospects
While there are still myriad obstacles to overcome (e.g. connectivity issues, avatar uniformity, music licensing), it cannot be argued at the start of 2021 that the flood gates are bursting with growth and expansion potential, which traditionally means major investment is not far behind.
Couple that with the extreme advancements being made in the arenas of virtual production, volumetric and light field capture, and even a rekindling of motion capture technology for VR, we can only surmise that the near future of this budding mass medium is as exciting (and potentially profitable) as any media vertical. The announcement last month at (virtual) CES by Sony of their cross-platform immersive music experience from Madison Beer which utilized their long-gestating AXA capture stage is one example.
Honourable mention should also be offered to Redpill VR and Sensorium. They have been operating in stealth for several years, but have consistently managed to garner creative partnerships and fresh capital infusions, whilst waiting for the surrounding tech and potential market to mature. But, until we can see what they’re actually offering, it’s hard to assert that they will drive the market; rather, their success would be a by-product of a market that is finally catching up to their innovations.
WebXR:
Finally, it should be noted that the most promising arena of all the above to host virtual concerts may actually be that of WebXR. Given the fact that this “platform” can already host high-quality 2D, 360 and volumetric video, along with the more obvious fact that it’s the only 3D arena mentioned here which doesn’t require downloading an app-container to access (i.e. anyone with access to a webpage can experience it), this latent state seems anomalous. After all, companies like Facebook and Amazon hold heavy positions in its future, whether on the developer side or engineering side. Perhaps the only thing standing in the way of a proper coming-out party for WebXR is the existence of a seminal event with a noteworthy artist.
Conclusion
All told, the future for immersive concert experiences is wildly promising. Astute creatives and executives are getting smarter about this landscape every day, and audiences are adapting rapidly to whatever is on offer—not “en masse”, but they never do (lest we forget VR c. 2015-19).
And although a person could already fill their 2021 calendar with as much virtual activity as the real-world experience it would be replacing, the average quality of the experience still has far to rise.
We can remain hopeful that in the shadow of the greatest global challenge to take shape during any of our lifetimes, new rituals will emerge…spurred by fans and music lovers seeking to connect, artists and creators pushing to evolve, corporate backers willing to invest, and engineers ready to break the mold.
Along with everything else in 2021, the future wellbeing of the music industry may depend on it.
The past year has seen many industries pivot into the digital realm and seek new ways to connect. That includes the music industry with artists reaching fans across multiple platforms. Yet, one of the early pioneers of virtual performances Wave – formerly TheWaveVR – has announced that its virtual reality (VR) app is to shutter.
To the Wave community re: Wave VR. Questions or comments, we encourage you to connect with us at info@wavexr.com. pic.twitter.com/C0xcstWvHa
Wave launched its music platform in 2016, providing users with both live and recorded immersive performances. Like many it expected to see a surge in VR adoption which never quite happened back then, so a couple of years later started to change its strategy and cater to the standard streaming market. In a recent tweet, Wave CEO and co-founder Adam Arrigo has now confirmed those VR aspirations are ending.
Noting that: “the VR industry didn’t develop as quickly as we’d hoped,” and because of this he says: “The hardest part of running a startup is choosing what to focus on, which has led us to the difficult decision to sunset TheWaveVR app on Steam and Oculus.”
Although he does also cite Google Poly as another factor: “Unfortunately we built the user tools on top of Google Poly, which is shutting down. As much as we’d love to, we aren’t able to spend the resources to build a new backend pipeline, since we are already spread so thin trying to accomplish our current set of non VR objectives.”
So, for now, that means the definitive end of Wave’s VR plans. The company may return to VR in the future, most likely when adoption has reached more mainstream appeal. “We promise to do everything we can to one day bring back this experience in an even more evolved form,” Arrigo said.
Wave secured $30 million USD in Series B funding during last summer as it pivoted towards a broader user base. Past artists who’ve performed on the platform include John Legend, The Weeknd, Imogen Heap, and Jean-Michel Jarre. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Oculus Go celebrated its first birthday this week, which means a bunch of VR apps did too. One such app is MelodyVR, a music platform that offers immersive concert experiences. The platform initially caught headlines for allegedly attracting significant investors such as British pop star, Adele. But, after its first year on the market, MelodyVR just reported an overall loss.
EVR Holdings, the company behind MelodyVR posted its financial results for the year ending December 31 2018 on the London Stock Exchange yesterday. Overall it saw an operating loss of £11.3 million (about $14.7 million). The company said this was a result of “increased investment in people and operating capabilities”. Revenues in 2018 totaled £1.2 million (about $1.5 million).
All that said, EVR also confirmed that it raised £20 million ($26 million) over the course of the year and, as of last year, it “had cash and cash equivalents in excess of £19 million [$24.7 million] for future expansion and development.”
MelodyVR offers a wide range of 360 degree videos filmed at concerts. You can choose from a number of different angles to watch from, including joining artists on stage. Current artists on the platform include The Streets, Rudimental and The Kooks.
In light of the report, EVR noted it would now focus on its mobile strategy as VR continues to grow. Last year MelodyVR hosted its first ever livestream featuring One Direction’s Liam Payne. Tellingly, of the 127,000 views the concert has had to date, the “majority” were via the Facebook 360 platform, and now in VR.
But don’t expect to see MelodyVR disappear from VR platforms. Back in January we reported that the company was planning to bring the service to another Oculus headset, which could very well be Oculus Quest.
Three things you need to know about me: I love VR, I love food, but man do I love Pearl Jam. Probably (definitely) a bit too much. If you’ve spent any time with me in the flesh then I apologise about how much I’ve probably raved about them to you.
This week frontman Eddie Vedder announced he was touring Europe, including two shows in London. Naturally, I desperately want to go to both, and I was lucky enough to get tickets to the first night in a pre-sale. For the second night, however, I wasn’t so fortunate. Despite sitting on Ticketmaster and watching the countdown for sales tick down, seats were gone in less than a second.
In a fit of unnecessary panic I did something I’m not proud of; I turned to ticket scalping sites.
Now I hate ticket scalping more than anyone. I find it amazing that in 2017 people are still allowed to purchase tickets at face value and then prey on the less fortunate concert goers, selling them on at a much higher price. It’s an incredibly infuriating practise that, if we all showed a bit of restraint, we could put a stop to by just simply refusing to buy second-hand tickets. But I’m a fan, and I’m all too familiar with the stubborn denial that comes with missing out on tickets; you’d pay anything to be in that room on that night.
Well, fortunately for me, I was able to snap out of my crazed desperation at the last possible millisecond; I cancelled a $500 order for two tickets as my card was being verified. I decided that food for a month might just be a little more important then two hours of music one evening.
I’m bummed I probably won’t be at that show, but I can’t support scalping of that magnitude. And that got me thinking; maybe with VR I won’t have to.
As it currently stands I’m not crazy about the idea of 360 degree concerts. Just like most 360 videos I find them kind of unengaging mostly because of poor picture quality and the overall after thought nature of most shoots. Production quality has to come a long way before I would genuinely consider paying for a virtual ticket to watch a show. But I found myself thinking that, in this situation where I wasn’t able to get tickets to the second night, I’d quite happily pay to virtually sit there if it meant scalpers didn’t get any of my money.
But there’s a long way to go before that happens. One of the most exciting things about gigs is the way sound hits your body and vibrates through the entire room. There’s also no replacement for meeting real people and other fans and making friendships with them. We may not ever get VR to a point where these kinds of experiences feel truly real, but we might get to a point where they’re a great alternative to spending untold sums of money that goes to the greedy.
VR means so many good things for so many industries, but if it meant the death of the ticket scalping trade I’d consider that one of its greatest achievements.
(P.S.: If anyone has a spare ticket to the second London gig, let me know)
