VR Concert Archives

Stageverse is a new social VR platform debuting this week with a two-hour immersive capture of the Muse: Simulation Theory concert. The platform allows multiple viewers to experience the concert together through 360° 3D footage captured from multiple angles around the venue. In addition to Oculus Quest, Stageverse also supports iOS and Android devices.

Founded initially back in 2017, Stageverse is making its debut this week after purportedly raising $7.5 million in venture capital. The company has built a social VR platform that it hopes will be home to entertainment and social interactivity. You can find the app for Oculus Quest, iOS, and Android.

At the outset the company is focused on building out a virtual concert venue, and has partnered with the hit band Muse to debut the platform with an immersive two-hour capture of the band’s Simulation Theory concert.

“Simulation Theory has always been about creating experiences that redefine the human role in programming and technology,” said Muse frontman and co-founder Matt Bellamy. “We can’t wait for our fans to be able to truly immerse themselves in our Simulation Theory world and take full advantage of everything that the Stageverse experience will offer.”

The Simulation Theory Concert was captured in 360° 3D in 2019. Users can meet up in a social hub space in the app then watch the concert together in avatar-form from any one of 16 viewpoints.

Part of the Stageverse social hub | Image courtesy Stageverse

The concert is available now in Stageverse, free for a limited time, with shows starting at 7PM ET (your timezone here) on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. An on-demand preview of the concert can be seen at any time.

Although the Muse concert is clearly the keystone content at launch, Stageverse says the platform is capable of more than just concerts. Founders Tim Ricker and Claire Seidler see the platform extending to host all manner of immersive social experiences. In October the company plans to launch an immersive art exhibit by visual artist Shantell Martin that will be seamlessly integrated into the platform alongside the Muse concert.

Stageverse is also hoping to create an “NFT economy and marketplace” built around avatar clothing and customization that will “unlock community capitalism to the fullest extent.” To kick off that effort the platform has also partnered up with Parisian fashion house Balmain to offer up a small set of avatar fashion items. Though it isn’t yet clear what kind of prices the company will be asking for, nor precisely how its NFT ownership model will work.

ABBA returns after 40 years with new music and a unique concert experience featuring their de-aged 3D ABBAtars.

ABBA, theSwedish pop group behind massive hits such as “Dancing Queen,” “Take a Chance On Me,” and “Mamma Mia” (you know that every part of that song is a hook!) is returning to the stage as digital avatars—or ABBAtars—to promote Voyage, their first new album in 40 years.

The cutting-edge concert will use digital technology to take ABBA fans on a captivating time-travel experience during which the members of ABBA—Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Björn Ulvaeus—will perform a variety of songs from their latest album alongside a 10-piece band.

To create their digital variants, the band’s creative team turned to the same motion capture technology used in big Hollywood films like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The motion capture suits were so cool that the members of ABBA decided to use a photo of themselves in their suits as their most recent press photo.

Honestly, they look pretty badass!

Image Credit: ABBA

ABBA’s digital concert experience, referred to as Voyage, will use a pre-recorded performance of ABBA in their mocap suits. The 10-piece band accompanying the virtual avatars, however, will be performing remotely in real-time.

To blend the live show with ABBA’s pre-recorded digital performance, the band worked with choreographer Wayne McGregor, the resident artist at London’s Royal Ballet. Industrial Light & Magic is responsible for all of the animations you’ll see on stage during the show as well as de-aging technology used for ABBA’s avatars.

Both the Voyage concert and album have been in the works for some time now. Originally announced in 2016 by the band’s manager, Simon Fuller (who is no longer representing them), the band needed the technology to be right in order for them to deliver something their fans would love.

During an interview conducted after the projects initial review, Andersson, who came up with the term ABBAtars, talked about why it would take a few years for the band to make this all a reality, saying, “It will take a bit of time, it takes time to digitize a face. It’s fun that it’s so technologically advanced.”

In a video created by The Guardian, Ben Morris, ILM Creative Director, said, “We create ABBA in their prime. We are creating them as digital characters and will be using performance capture techniques to animate them, perform them, and make them look perfectly real.”

The process required Morris and his team to capture the group as they rehearsed and interacted with each other. This data was then used to power the group’s digital avatars…I meant ABBAtars!

ABBA’s new album Voyage will be released on November 5th and is available for pre-order now. The Voyage avatar concert experience will launch in March of 2022 and take place in London’s custom-built 3,000 capacity arena in Queen Elizabeth Park called ABBA Arena.

Tickets for the digital show go on sale beginning on September 7th.

Feature Image Credit: The Guardian