Amid the waves of shifts brought about by the pandemic, virtual events are seeing a rise, gradually becoming new ‘standards’ in facilitating wide-ranging connection, bridging great distances, and allowing vastly sparse circles to regularly meet and keep in touch.
This supposed next ‘phase’ of virtual events goes beyond the stale ‘webinar’ Zoom model. No, upping the stakes means events will now involve wholly digital avatars, moving and interacting within wholly digital environments, which is the direction the Metaverse wants to point all of us in.
This is exactly what makes Snap’s latest project so interesting, as it explains:
“As part of promotion for the upcoming Valentine’s Day rom-com Marry Me, Snap and Universal Pictures are hosting a first-of-its-kind virtual concert event developed by Oz and featuring new music from the upcoming romantic comedy.”
A ‘Toonish’ Reality?
Snap’s next big virtual event, which is titled ‘Marry Me’, is accessible via this site and enables fans to log into Snapchat via their Bitmoji character. Their character is then added to the crowd, providing them with new interactive experiences that eventually tie into your Snap presence.
Each Bitmoji character will be able to:
- Start the wave amongst a crowd of hundreds of other Bitmoji attendees.
- Release virtual doves into the arena when J-LO performs a love song.
- Trigger a series of lasers to sweep the stage and crowd for dramatic effect.
- And take advantage of many other interactive options – to perfect your virtual dance moves, blow bubbles, spawn hearts in the arena, and more.
The concert was hosted in promotion of Jennifer Lopez’s new movie and will feature new songs from its Marry Me soundtrack, which also happens to be a first-of-its-kind initiative for Snap, opening up new promotional opportunities. Ideally, it also helps Snap lean more into the coming Metaverse shift, helping it to better align with the strengths of the format for more optimized integration.
Virtual concerts, though not a complete novelty concept, do provide interesting perspectives on how the next stage of digital connection would likely pan out. Community-focused online games like Roblox and team-based competitive multiplayer games like Fornite have hosted respective digital concerts over recent years, some of which have even led to massive engagement spikes, such as the case of Fortnite’s Travis Scott ‘Astronomical’ event, which drew 27.7 million in-game viewers back in 2020. Likewise, last year’s Ariana Grande ‘Rift Tour’ was watched by over 78 million gamers.
The Wrap
The next phase of digital connection is likely represented by a predominantly younger audience, seeing as how the bulk of people that are on platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite are aged under 20. While the premise of attending a concert ‘virtually’ still feels a bit odd, for a gradually increasing number of people, it’s already normal. Surprisingly, some would even say that it would rival the excitement and thrill of a physical event, which highlights the immersive capabilities of evolving technologies. Though a first for Snap, it hopefully won’t be the last.
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