This year might have been the most difficult year in history for the music industry. All festivals, concerts and live events were cancelled or further postponed, and the entire event industry is afraid of not ever being able to come back in the form it was before the pandemic. For over months the question for many artists and labels was how to alternate live music performances and concerts and make it accessible for the fans at home as well as profitable for the artists. However, on April 23 rapper and musician Travis Scott and video game developer Epic Games might have presented the solution. On that day and weekend, Travis Scott performed several virtual live shows in the video game “Fortnite Battle Royale”. According to Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, 12.3 unique players participated in the first concert on April 23 (Miceli, 2020). Across the weekend over 27.7 million users worldwide experienced the five concerts (Miceli, 2020) and five months later the full event has almost 100 million YouTube clicks on Travis Scott’s Youtube channel (Youtube, 2020).
The “Astronomical Experience” itself was rather short compared to a normal concert or festival appearance. For around 10 minutes gamers were able to adventure a gorilla-sized Travis Scott floating through time and space while “performing” his greatest hit singles such as “Sicko Mode”, “Goosebumps” or “Highest in the room” (Webster, 2020). Travis Scott himself was not performing with live vocals, the focus was rather on the visuals than on the artistry performance. For some people this might sound lazy or incomplete as it does not represent a real live performance. However, if you start a show with having a planet-like object soaring through the air until it gets close enough to you and blows up perfectly when the beat switches and you see a giant 15 foot computer animated Travis Scott jumping in front of your Fortnite character, the live vocals will not matter to you anymore. There was not a stage in this performance, but rather the entire Fornite map was utilized for this performance. Gamers could move freely in the map, while the visuals were constantly changing. Some songs were performed underwater while others were staged in space. Overall, the theme of the event and visuals were psychedelically influenced and especially towards the end of the performance the whole experience felt like you just got off a roller-coaster (Holmes, 2020).
Even though the event was planned for a long time, the lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic was a rather unfortunate perfect timing for the event. Travis Scott was originally scheduled to headline one of the biggest music festivals in the world “Coachella” (Beaumont-Thomas, 2020). Nevertheless, the Fortnite collaboration allowed Travis Scott to be wider known worldwide and gain an entire novel younger fanbase that would usually not attend real life concerts or festivals due to age restrictions. As a matter of fact, the collaboration secured Travis Scott immense success regarding streaming and sales (Rutherford & Caulfield, 2020). On April 23, the day of the first Fortnite event, Travis Scott accumulated 10.3 million on demand streams in the United States. On April 24, the day after the first concert, Travis Scott’s streams surged by 136% with an accumulated 24.4 million U.S on-demand streams of his songs. Furthermore, Travis Scott secured his third No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as “The Scotts”, a collaboration with Scott’s idol Kid Cudi, inaugurates at the top of the chart in the United States. The song was premiered in the “Astronomical Event” (Rutherford & Caulfield, 2020). Overall, Travis Scott gained huge popularity worldwide and established himself as one of the biggest artists of the current generation.
The question arising now for many stakeholders in the music industry is whether virtual concerts have the potential to disrupt classical concerts and festivals. The answer to that question is plain and simple. No. Both from a consumer and an artist point of view the real-world connection between these two groups is missing. This connection makes concerts and festivals unique. Being in a crowd with your best friends at a festival and seeing your favorite artist perform can not be substituted by a video game simulation. Do not get me wrong, we might see many more virtual concerts in the future, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. However, real world music festivals and concerts will not disappear in the near future. The Travis Scott astronomical event introduced the world to a novel way of experiencing music performances. Nevertheless, the current technological advancement can not provide the same sentiment and feeling when attending a musical event. However, virtual concerts will not vanish once the pandemic is over. More innovative virtual reality concepts will be introduced in the future. But as long as these concepts do not reflect the community spirit and musical experience of a live-show, they will not be able to replace real-life events.
Bibliography
Beaumont-Thomas, B., 2020. Coachella 2020 announced with headliners Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/03/coachella-2020-lineup-headliners-rage-against-the-machine-travis-scott-frank-ocean-lana-del-rey
[Accessed 29 September 2020].
Holmes, C., 2020. I’ve Never Played Fortnite, But Was Forced to Attend Travis Scott’s Fortnite Concert. [Online]
Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/travis-scott-fortnite-concert-989209/
[Accessed 29 September 2020].
Miceli, M., 2020. Fortnite’s Travis Scott concert drew more than 27.7 million unique participants. [Online]
Available at: https://dotesports.com/fortnite/news/fortnites-travis-scott-concert-drew-more-than-27-7-million-unique-participants
[Accessed 28 September 2020].
Rutherford, K. & Caulfield, K., 2020. Travis Scott’s Streams & Sales Leap Following ‘Fortnite’ Virtual Concert. [Online]
Available at: https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/9369298/travis-scott-sales-fortnite-virtual-concert
[Accessed 30 September 2020].
Webster, A., 2020. Travis Scott’s first Fortnite concert was surreal and spectacular. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/23/21233637/travis-scott-fortnite-concert-astronomical-live-report
[Accessed 28 September 2020].
Youtube, 2020. Travis Scott and Fortnite Present: Astronomical (Full Event Video). [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYeFAlVC8qU
[Accessed 8 September 2020].
Hi Sahand, thanks for your post on this ‘astronomical’ event. Although not a Fortnite expert, I wish I would have known about this Travis Scott performance earlier. It sounds LIT. I completely agree with you that such virtual events will never be able to replace or disrupt the traditional concert setting. However, with the current state on covid regulations, this seems like a viable alternative solution. Specifically the issue you raised on that the entertainment industry possibly may never bounce back to its original state, before this pandemic, is concerning to me. By organising more virtual events, collaborating with large platforms or companies and creating synergies, artists may have the opportunity to regain some control over the situation. From the consumer perspective it can be a form of still enjoying (new) music from your favourite artists, and perhaps extensions similar to ‘breakout rooms’ can potentially serve as the social substitution, by providing the possibility to experience such concerts with friends. All in all, I am interested to see what these resourceful artists come up with to survive in the entertainment industry. They need to have ASTROng creative, entrepreneurial mentality to make it through.
Hi Sahand,
I think you bring up a very interesting point of discussion. The success of Travis Scott’s virtual concert cannot be denied. I do however agree with your point that these virtual experiences can not replace actual concerts. But as you also mentioned, this success can very well have opened up another way to experience music. The Travis Scott concert for me was more of an online, interactive music video than a live concert. The possiblities of creating an actual experience for the fans are virtually endless when comparing this ”concert” with a regular music video. I think it can really help with branding for artists. Artists for example usually have campaigns around their new singles and/or albums and then just release the music on all major platforms on the day of release. To create a better experience and involve the fans more, these virtual events could help creating more ”hype” around an artist. For the Fortnite event, a lot of people who virtually attended the event weren’t neccesarily Travis Scott fans, but could have also been interested in the event itself or are just regular Fortnite players. By creating these virtual experiences, you can reach more people than only your current fans and you create more content to engage your current fans as well.
This is a very interesting topic. I do agree with you with regards to the fact that virtual concerts will not replace the human aspect of an actual concert. The connection between the artist and the fans is not one that can be easily replicated especially without live, personalized interaction. It would be like taking the input part out of the video game as many of these live performers feed off their fans’ energies and this is why they are such successful performers.
What a crazy way of moving into a completely different segment of listeners. Super smart however! All of these kids are just starting to listen to pop music and including the songs in their favorite game is the way to go.
Everyone that has ever played a video game will have some songs that you just like because you heard them while playing your favorite game (Every radio X song in GTA San Andreas). But never except for guitar hero has there been actual interaction with the music.
I can imagine that such events will take place more often in the future as there is a mutual benefit: obviously for the artist but also for the sales within free-to-play games such as Fortnite.
However, when I watch the video I notice I might just be a little too old for this 😉