Author | Chi Yuluo Editor | Fan Zhihui
Generally speaking, there are two types of changes, one is a small iteration and the other is a drastic transformation. The former often occurs in periods of calm and prosperous, while the latter stands out in turmoil and conflict and becomes a new survival strategy. When experience no longer fits with reality and faces external forces, the industry will step out of its comfort zone and accelerate its transformation, giving birth to new possibilities.
2020, the black swan of the epidemic has advanced the digital transformation of the music industry. According to data from the China Performing Association, more than 20,000 performances cancelled or postponed nationwide in the first quarter of this year, accounting for more than 80% of the total number of shows from January to March, resulting in a direct box office loss of about 2.4 billion. The "2019 Performance Industry Insight Report" believes that cloud performances have become an alternative, guiding some users to switch from offline to online, which is expected to become a new performance trend.
Like the streaming declaration of war on the record era in the past few years, we once again stood before a turning point that heralds change. Under the influence of the global coronavirus epidemic, offline concerts were forced to be pressed. At the same time, online concerts emerged and developed rapidly. Active attacks or passive transformation have become a tomorrow worth thinking about.
When the market began to embrace online music performances
During the epidemic, online concerts around the world were staged one after another, with a variety of types and forms. Effective explorations were made under different cultural backgrounds and business models. In Europe and the United States, large-scale charity performances continue to attract attention: in March, veteran singer Elton John and others invited artists such as Mariah Carey, Backstreet Boys, and Billie Eilish to perform; in April, Lady Gaga launched the most topical "One World: Together At Home" global charity online concert this year; in June, the YouTube platform held the "Dear Class of 2020", and well-known artists such as Katy Perry, Beyoncé, and BTS performed.
In addition, virtual performances that are not live-action also present a new possibility: on April 24, singer Travis Scott held five in-game concerts in the game "Fortnite". With less than 10 minutes of performances, it finally attracted 27.7 million gamers to watch with the ultimate visual effects, with a total viewing of more than 45 million times. At the peak, 12.3 million players were online at the same time, setting a record of single attendance in "Fortnite". At the same time, this also allowed his new song "The Scotts" to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, demonstrating the huge potential of game + music.
In Asia, online music performances in China, Japan and South Korea are also emerging one after another:
It is worth mentioning that South Korea has gone further in the field of paid online performances. Last week, the KPOP group BTS , which celebrated its 7th anniversary, set a world record: On June 14, at the "BANG BAGN CON" online concert, seven members performed 100 minutes online, attracting 750,000 people to watch it, and their income exceeded 120 million yuan, setting a record for online paid concerts around the world, and also make people look forward to the profit margin of online performances.
, and the leading Korean entertainment company SM Entertainment also launched a Beyond live online concert early. On April 26, the first online performance of the Super M group attracted 75,000 people online and earned more than 2 million US dollars. On May 31, Super Junior's online concert exceeded 123,000 paid audiences, setting a record for online performances of SM's artists.
The two leading entertainment companies have already found a good entry point for commercial monetization in paid viewing.
. Long before the epidemic, Japan launched paid online concerts. In 2019, Japanese communications company DoCoMo launched "New Somatic Live", and popular artists such as AKB48 participated in the live broadcast. In terms of price, it will fluctuate depending on the number of events. For example, the former HKT48 member pointed out that the live broadcast of Hara Rino's graduation concert on April 28, 2019 was 2,980 yen, equivalent to about 200 yuan. The new Somatosensory Live provides VR versions and non-VR versions, with a total of 6 live cameras in the audience and 4 are close-up shots. It supports watching after the concert.At the beginning of this year, in the online concert of SixTONES, a six-person idol group under Japan's Johnniez, a ticket worth 2,420 yen (about 160 yuan), it also included the AR image and AR badges of all members' images, which became a major selling point for online performances.
In the rapidly developing mobile Internet environment, many explorations have been made in the Chinese market online performance: Gao Xiaosong served as the chief planner and jointly initiated by the five major music platforms, attracting more than 130 groups of musicians to participate in the performance; TME, a subsidiary of Tencent Music Entertainment Group, has been TME Live, top artists such as Rene Liu, JJ Lin, Yuan Yawei, and Mayday all participated, and the performance of Mayday on May 31 attracted more than 35 million people to watch online, with a warm response; Douyin "DOULive", Migu Music Online Concert, Kuaishou "Cloud Party Music Week", and Bilibili "Zhai Strawberry Music Festival" have all become important exposure channels for musicians during the epidemic and have also brought huge traffic to the platform.
In addition to free episodes, NetEase Cloud Music's "Light-up Live Action", iQiyi Entertainment's "LIVE Plan", Modern Sky "Strawberry Nebula", Damai and Youku's "Parallel Mai Live" and other activities will be conducted at a small fee, and Pathfinder Music's online live broadcast payment.
can be seen that in just a few months, the online concert has quickly moved from a conceptualized scene to the public and has gained a lot of attention. But at the same time, it has also caused many doubts and controversies, and there are endless discussions about where the online concert will go.
online music performance, is it a copy of offline performance?
To clarify the relationship between online performances and offline performances, it actually depends largely on the perspective of looking at online concerts, which will greatly affect our understanding of this emerging field. When facing the same proposition, different groups of people naturally have different perspectives of attention and their views are naturally different.
From a public perspective, online performances break the users' traditional consumption habits and are even more difficult to escape the fate of comparing them with offline performances. For offline and online performances, a person may show completely different willingness to pay. During online performances, the lack of sense of presence, participation, and the limitations of underlying network technology may cause damage to viewing fluency, and the audio-visual effect of the content will also interfere with the public's psychological cognition, which will make the anchorage of the price and value of the product differently.
From the perspective of platform needs, exploration of business models, conversion of user traffic, and the long-term layout of 5G are more important. Based on content reserves, brand promotion, and product series construction, how to make the products of live broadcasts online, make highlights and be deeply rooted in people's hearts, needs to break out of the shackles of offline performances and think from the online product itself. Some industry insiders have mentioned that the content packaging logic and presentation requirements for online performances and offline performances are completely different, which also puts higher requirements on the product.
Once the offline atmosphere is separated from the atmosphere, the participants lose the sense of introductory influence under the influence of the group, and relying solely on a small electronic screen to perceive, it is difficult to achieve an effect beyond expectations.
To explore the product experience of online concerts, you need to deeply understand its advantages and weaknesses: on the one hand, online performances break the regional and time limits (review back), providing a sense of interaction and immersion; on the other hand, the lack of sense of atmosphere and ritual has also become fatal flaws, such as the user experience is subject to the Internet and technology, and after a negative impression, it causes a decrease in the willingness to pay and limited evaluation of product value. Once lost, it may be more difficult to recall in the future than offline performances.
In a survey of 108 users in the Beijing News, more than half believed that the biggest advantage of online concerts is that they do not have to rush to the scene to save time and effort. 94.44% of users believe that the biggest disadvantage is that the atmosphere is not as good as the scene. Regarding "If you accept the charge, how much does it cost range do you think is reasonable", only 5.56% chose the option above 50 yuan.Although the survey sample size is small and not statistically significant, it can still be seen qualitatively about the attitudes of some users towards the advantages and disadvantages of the product and willingness to pay.
reports show that the current cost of online concert production includes venue fees, "sound, photoelectric" field equipment, technical configuration, and staff's labor remuneration. The mainstream single live broadcast cost is about 200,000-300,000 yuan, and high-quality performances are even higher than offline costs. For online paid performances in China, the ticket prices range from 1 yuan to 30 yuan, and are generally concentrated in the unit price of 10 to 20 yuan, which means that more than 10,000 tickets can be sold before the cost can be recovered. However, ordinary musicians do not have such a strong consumption appeal.
Even the idol economy with strong commercial appeal and strong user stickiness will affect fans' consumption decisions due to problems such as instability in playback and rich content. In the discussions on Weibo about "watching experience of paid online concerts" and "whether you will repurchase", some users said in the comment section, "I have watched BTS' online concerts, and the member price you buy (Note: 29,000 won per session, about RMB 170). Whether it is non-member prices or member prices, I personally think it is a bit expensive... The overall atmosphere interaction is definitely not as good as watching the live broadcast of the New Year's Eve concert on TV. As for repurchase, if it is the same stage song, it is unlikely." Some users also said, "If you can include interaction with fans in the talk session of the concert in the future, such as connecting fans in real time, it feels like a combination of online signing and concerts. In this way, at least I am more willing to repurchase, and I think the ticket price is more worth it."
also has Super Junior fans saying, "Paid viewing, I think it's worth the money. I haven't seen them for two or three years, and even on mobile phones, I think it's great. In addition, the linkage support stick, watching the happiness index up... Online concerts are undoubtedly the best opportunity to communicate with fans"; "The liveness of the performance is irreplaceable in any case. For example, the application of some cameras and technologies needs to be strengthened, but in the current situation, it is indeed the best choice."
This actually reveals an important information: Exploring the unique advantages of online performances and avoiding becoming the shadow of offline concerts or just DVDs broadcast online has become the key. Some of the planning of SM Entertainment Company here can provide an idea: at the Beyond Live concert, SM Entertainment incorporates interactivity, achieving the effect of a fan meeting, with 100-person videos online at the same time, and there is also the opportunity to have real-time video calls with artists.
Online concerts should not be regarded simply and roughly as a digital version of offline performances, but a brand new product form. Fans pay not only for music scenes, but also for an opportunity to communicate with their idols in close communication. In other words, providing users with a "unrejectable" scene of strong demand is what should be paid attention to in online concerts, rather than blindly pursuing a sense of presence and reality. After all, online can never replace offline reality, and running on this impossible track will not make significant improvements.
Exploring online music performance is a future-oriented empowerment
However, for the platform or content, if you want to do a good online concert, you must first use a narrow door to complete the accumulation of multiple abilities. For Internet audio and video platforms, musicians, brokerage companies or labels, they all face different degrees of challenges.
Technologically, the first thing the Internet platform needs to solve is fatal problems such as screen lag, delay, and out-synchronization of audio and video under high concurrency, and complete the most basic viewing experience optimization. At the same time, in terms of audio-visual experience, it provides multi-view viewing effects such as close-up shots and wide-angle views, and continuously innovates more interesting interactive experiences, not limited to interactive forms such as barrage, video connection, and Bluetooth connection of other hardware, enhancing storyliness and immersion. In post-production, it provides faster audio and video processing special effects, equipment adaptation, AI review and other services to achieve the ability upgrade from the bottom to the upper level and improve the production efficiency, mode and experience of the program.
In terms of resource reserve, the creation, accumulation and exploration of artist IP, song IP, and virtual IP images also determine the richness of future online concerts. The challenges on the platform side also include exploring new revenue and share models, breaking traditional barriers, and achieving innovation in business operations.
At the same time, due to the traditional artist-fan relationship, it has been replaced by the new generation of idol-fan relationship, and the boundaries between Internet celebrities and artists will also become blurred. It can be foreseen that in the online performances of future musicians, various mature operating methods such as rewards and e-commerce live broadcasts will not be absent. For artists, in addition to their core characteristic positioning, artistic creation, and work quality, it is also important to maintain an open mind towards new things, master the skills of live broadcast interaction, and adapt to live performances without audiences.
In terms of performance form, the producers also need to return to the design origin of to C products, deeply explore the audience's psychological motivations, and at the same time explore the business model of to C + to B. Because online performances rely solely on audio-visual means, greater energy, material resources and financial resources are required to provide a continuous stream of freshness and satisfaction experience. Otherwise, the unchanging performance content and model will continue for a long time and will lead to single form and aesthetic fatigue, which will damage users' willingness to consume, resulting in low repurchase rates for products with low willingness to pay or high prices, and affect future commercial monetization.
people’s willingness to pay is often associated with the sense of value brought by the consumer object subconsciously. When users consume online music, movies, novels, live broadcasts and other entertainment products, many payments do not just happen under that pure product, but are mixed with vision, hearing, imagination space and a moment of impulse to become the final consumption decision. The amount of attention music occupies and how much business stimulation it can generate depends on the creativity and attraction of the content.
In general, compared with offline concerts, although online concerts have less marginal user costs, they need more sophisticated conception and design in the early stage, both audio-visual experience and link settings need to surpass the shocking feeling of the screen. As online businesses expand and demand changes may also lead to a change in skills demand, the demand for basic labor will decrease, and the talent market gap that increases and decreases may become an opportunity.
Actively explore online performances in a special background, which is a competition related to content and technology, and it is also a future-oriented capability reserve.
Conclusion
Online concert will not be a flash in the pan, but an industry trend. As an effective supplement to offline performances, the layout of online is of strategic significance.
This month, Big Hit Entertainment, where BTS is located, announced a global partnership with Kiswe Mobile, an American online streaming and video production company. In the future, the strong alliance and seamless connection of platform + technology + content may bring huge value returns. Cross-field cooperation, such as music + games, music + film and television dramas, and cross-media attempts such as music + VR, also have a lot of imagination space.
In the situation where the epidemic is still unclear, for relevant practitioners, you need to be mentally prepared to be unable to hold offline performances for a long time. Transformation is already unstoppable. How to obtain relatively stable material returns on the basis of maintaining continuous creation also requires musicians to participate in the formulation of game rules, actively speak out and strive for benefits. Standing at the turning point and looking at the future, we are all ignorant and short-sighted, and cannot escape the limitations of looking at the sky from a well. However, this does not prevent us from preparing, acting and adapting through understanding, facing possible changes with a more flexible attitude, and facing the arrival of inflection points more calmly.
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