Reporter of the Business Journal: Wen Menghua Reporter of the Business Journal: Dong Xingsheng
"It turns out that being a Doctor Who is this feeling. You have never felt old when you travel through time and space."
At the Voyage concert of the Swedish band ABBA held in London, Benny, a band member standing on the stage, sighed. After 40 years, the band, whose average member was 75 years old, met fans again with a virtual concert more than half a month ago.
htmlOn July 16, Tencent Music’s first virtual music social platform TMELAND, jointly with Pepsi and TMElive, created an immersive virtual music performance, which is also the first immersive virtual 3D performance created by TMELAND. Earlier, singer Wang Feng also held a virtual concert: 8K, 3D, VR panoramic Live. Users must wear VR all-in-one machines to enter the interface to watch and participate in it in an immersive way.
Image source: QQ Music
This is a visual feast brought by technology and a real reproduction of virtual concerts supported by technology. From Hatsune Miku, Luo Tianyi and other virtual singer concerts, to THE9 immersive virtual concerts, to the virtual music carnival TMELAND, holographic projection technology and virtual concerts have already quietly emerged.
As virtual technology becomes more mature, virtual concerts are highly sought after, and virtual concerts based on 3D experience may further open up imagination space. Major manufacturers such as Tencent Music (TME.N, stock price of US$4.34, market value of US$7.36 billion), iQiyi (IQ.O, stock price of US$3.66, market value of US$3.15 billion), B site (BILI.O, stock price of US$22.88, market value of US$8.94 billion) have increased their investment in trying to seize the next new trend of the entertainment ecosystem.
Live singer "virtual performance"
"The people on the stage are virtual projections? This looks too real." "I still remember the shock that Hatsune Miku Holographic Concert brought to me as a young man." "The point is that there are shadows of characters on the ground..." In one familiar melody after another, fans screamed while waving their arms and screaming.
On the stage of ABBA's Voyage virtual concert, the band members collectively rejuvenated with their shiny and young shapes and lively and powerful dances. A huge 65-megapixel screen, coupled with the live light and shadow effect of neon flashing, deceived the audience's eyes.
projects singers and audiences onto virtual people in the virtual space, bringing an immersive experience through interactive XR. This is the magic of virtual concerts and a new ecosystem of entertainment performances under the background of epidemic catalysis and the popularity of the meta-universe.
"In the metaverse, virtual concerts can provide a more realistic and immersive virtual environment, as well as more value-added auxiliary functions and strong interactive experiences. Compared with offline, it can allow more people to participate in the metaverse concert. This is a major trend." Ji Zhihui, CEO of Shiyou Technology, who has more than 10 years of industry experience in the field of digital human virtual technology, said in an interview with a reporter from " Daily Economic News ".
In early 2020, musician Travis Scott 3 held a virtual concert in the online game "Fortnite", and the number of people online in real time exceeded 10 million. This is the first time that a singer held a concert in a game. A year later, Justin Bieber reached a cooperation with virtual concert service provider Wave to hold his first "interactive virtual concert".
Image source: Visual China-VCG111359788268
in the country, virtual concerts are also in full swing. In the early days, virtual concerts in the "broad sense" created by Hatsune Miku, Luo Tianyi and others using holographic projection technology were no longer new.
"There are two main types of virtual concerts at present. One is a holographic concert, which is mainly the presentation of virtual people in offline scenes, such as Luo Tianyi's first 10,000-person holographic concert; the other is AR augmented reality technology, such as Teresa Teng's 's "debut" New Year's Eve concert." A person close to the virtual business of B station said.
Since this year, as more and more live singers, virtual singers and offline performances have turned their attention to virtual concerts, more new forms of exploration have begun to emerge.In 2022, Tencent Music launched the first virtual music carnival in China, TMELAND. Mayday’s New Year’s Eve concert became the first TME live super live performance "sponsored" in TMELAND’s metaverse. This metaverse concert attracted more than 10,000 people to watch, and audiences can also choose dance-style disco interaction.
Shunwei Capital Vice President Feng Zheng told the reporter of Meike that holographic concerts such as Hatsune Miku show more about virtual people themselves, which is one of the more common virtual concert forms at present; while the virtual concert in "Fortnite" and Tencent Music's TMELAND have a more 3D experience in the virtual world, which is a further exploration and attempt to perform the meta-universe concert.
Tencent , Sony , Warner Test the waters of the Meta Universe
, which has strongly correlated with the Meta Universe and has escaped the limitations of time and space, has become the new form that music giants are most concerned about, and more and more platforms and companies are increasing their layout.
"The meta-universe is essentially a non-game service that applies the game engine to provide a non-game service, which is related to real life. The intersection of the meta-universe and concert is actually a very interesting point. Music is a particularly typical scene that fits the meta-universe." Feng Zheng believes.
At the end of 2020, Tencent Music and virtual performance service provider Wave reached a strategic cooperation with and made equity investments in it. According to the cooperation agreement, the two parties will jointly explore the blue ocean market for virtual concerts. Tencent Music will conduct exclusive broadcasts of Wave Show in China on all platforms such as QQ Music , Kugou Music , Kuwo Music and Quanmin K-Song.
reporters in each business noticed that as the game developers of the most concerned virtual performance platforms "Fortnite" and "Roblox", Epic and Roblox also have giants such as Tencent and Sony behind them.
In 2012, Tencent acquired 48.4% of Epic's shares for more than US$300 million. In 2020, Sony and LEGO also invested in Epic; Roblox received financing from Warner Music in early 2021 and successively reached cooperation with BMG and Sony Music .
In addition to music giants’ love for virtual concerts, long and short video platforms and even the game industry have entered the virtual concert market. In 2021, iQiyi launched the virtual performance product "Cloud Performance". The immersive live virtual concert of THE9 "City of Virtual and Real" produced by it uses XR technology to travel through different spaces. It is reported that the total investment in the product exceeds 100 million yuan.
Picture source: QQ Music
As early as 2016, B station, which was the first to explore virtual singer concerts, also created several large-scale concerts in 2021 with the virtual idol project VirtuaReal. The "Summer Chorus Pro Max" in 2020 has created a virtual city market scene; it also participated in the Japanese virtual show technology company Lategra, etc.
"After the concept of the meta-universe is popular, it is obvious that many large companies and capital have joined in the past two years. For example, many companies that used to do animation and games will also incubate corresponding virtual performances after having the ability to do virtual scenes." The above-mentioned people close to the virtual business of B station are deeply touched by the entry of many companies.
Ji Zhihui also had a deep understanding. Speaking of the changes in the industry in recent years, he said: "The supply and demand relationship in the market has undergone obvious changes. In the past many years, we had relatively mature virtual technology, but there were relatively few customers, mainly concentrated in the radio and television industry. But now with the popularity of the meta universe, virtual people and virtual concerts, customers are widely distributed in various industries."
However, in the view of people close to the virtual business of B station, the entry of many companies into virtual concerts is a process of making a big cake. The industry is still in a healthy competitive environment. Moreover, for different groups, many subdivided tracks have appeared, and platform companies are not crowded in the same track.
is based on 3D experience or new opportunities.
As a leading technology company that continues to invest in the field of AI and leads innovation, Huawei has launched a new upgrade solution of " Digital Human ". Some analysts believe that the metaverse track is crowded at present, but there are still many bottleneck problems in the real world that no one can ignore: one is the cost problem; the second is the interactive problem of "anthropomorphism" of scenes; and the third is the in-depth combination of scenarios and applications.
This is also a problem facing virtual concerts. In the early stages of virtual concerts, the market had limited awareness of virtual technology and did not agree with it. Compared with the natural fan base of offline concerts, the business model of virtual concerts still follows the offline model, and it still requires some exploration and attempt.
Voyage concert of Swedish band ABBA Picture source: Video screenshot
From the overall market situation, virtual concerts have not yet formed a market scale, and both platforms and technologies are in the early stage of trial.
"At present, virtual concerts are more bound to the original offline or online form. In live broadcasts or virtual scenes, the real person is replaced with virtual people, and more the original concert form is upgraded. The production cost and cycle are relatively high." Ji Zhihui observed.
Every business reporter learned from a practitioner that although the requirements for the fineness of digital people and virtual scenes at present are different, the cost is uneven. But compared to an offline ordinary concert with a cost of one million, the cost of a holographic concert similar to Luo Tianyi’s 10,000-person level is as high as ten million yuan. Such a high investment cost determines the scarcity of current high-quality virtual concerts in terms of frequency. In the interview with
, both investors, industry insiders and practitioners believe that in the future, virtual concerts should be closer to the virtual world of the metaverse, and technology, cost and operation are the key to exploration, and the future growth potential of virtual concerts is still optimistic.
In fact, from holographic concerts to virtual music carnival TMELAND; from virtual singers to real singers, digital people, with the support of technology, virtual concerts are becoming more and more cool, with more and more interactive scenes.
Ji Zhihui admitted that virtual concerts are still a blue ocean at present, and their market size will be larger than traditional concerts in the future. "At present, virtual concerts are more shifting from offline to online. In the future, with the expansion of virtual space and the extension of virtual consumption, concerts in the metaverse will meet more new needs. In the future, its growth will definitely be rapid and will become a must-fight place on the content side."
As an investor, Feng Zheng is more concerned about the exploration of new possibilities in the virtual world in the future than the existing attempts in the market. In his opinion, virtual concerts under holographic projection technology and AR augmented reality technology that are sought after in the market have long existed. This kind of concert that is more inclined to virtual people, and in the future, what is more worth exploring and having opportunities is a virtual concert similar to TMELAND and based on 3D experience.
"Concerts in the meta-universe emphasize more on the exploration of virtual space interactive scenes, not on whether they are online or whether they are virtual people. It reflects more on the consumption of a space, rather than on the consumption of information. Future scenarios must develop towards virtual and 3D experience spaces, so that they are valuable." Feng Zheng said.
Daily Economic News
Daily Economic News
