One of the things we miss most from the pre-Covid-19 period are live shows and concerts . According to the data recorded by the SIAE, during 2020 this sector suffered a very strong setback in Italy, recording a -89.32% of box office receipts and a collapse of concerts to -65.97%. While waiting for the situation to improve, we can take advantage of technology to mitigate the lack of live events: not only through Instagram ( as we have during the lockdown ) but also with real virtual reality experiences. An example is UnReal Club , the first Italian application that allows you to live a virtual and immersive musical experience. Available for iOS and Android, was born from the idea of combining the musical world with that of virtual reality to allow you to return to attend artistic performances by leveraging the potential of new immersive technologies.
UnReal Club is the tangible response to the dramatic situation that has knocked out the world of music and live entertainment, pushing us to imagine innovative solutions to create new contexts and spaces for musical events. Our application was therefore created with the aim of transferring the experience of a musical event in a virtual environment, guaranteeing the involvement of the user on a sensory level. An event to be experienced through VR headsets compatible with your smartphone or in classic 360-degree mode », says Salvatore Iodice, co-founder of UnReal Club .
How Unreal Club works
Just get on a VR viewer – even the cheapest ones such as Cardboards – to immerse yourself again in a stadium or concert hall and find yourself in the midst of other spectators. Thanks to the combination of virtual reality technology and 360-degree video recordings, UnReal Club gives the idea of being again in front of an outdoor event by mixing content on demand with real immersive performances that you can attend by paying a ticket .
Access to the app is simple and intuitive: just register, create your avatar , customize it with gadgets and clothing and that’s it. Like live, within each virtual location the avatars of all users gather to attend the musical event on air at that moment, interact with each other just as if you were inside a video game and perform actions thanks head tracking and audio chats .
The app is a cross platform that also caters to artists and brands . The former have a solution to promote their businesses that they can rely on regardless of any external conditions. While brands have the opportunity to find new spaces for communication and advertising in UnReal Club. For example, you can customize the space of the location in 3D , or customize the gadgets and avatar outfits with your logo.
Scheduled events
It begins on April 25 with an exclusive concert by Gue Pequeno , the first Italian artist to perform in virtual reality: users can buy a ticket ( € 5 ), watch the artist’s performance and experience a unique experience through a VR viewer. The show will start at 6 pm and will remain available to registered users until midnight of the same day. The ticket is associated with the buyer’s phone number.
Will the show be live? No, the production process of video on demand and live performance takes place through the recording in the studio of the artist’s real performance on green screen, which is subsequently post-produced with the addition of visual effects and the creation of a location. entirely virtual. But it is a nice solution to explore the potential offered by VR technologies for the benefit of the music world. It will not be like unleashing on the notes of our favorite artists, but we can still be satisfied with a surrogate to live in first person while waiting for the health emergency to end.
Source: This app allows us to experience live concerts (almost) as in the past | City Telegraph
