Last week a virtual concert held in a virtual Helsinki attracted more than one million spectators. Literally 12% of Finland’s total population tuned into this one event.
The concert was held as a digital replacement for the country’s usual May Day celebrations held annually on 1st May - one of the most prominent public holidays in Finland. Obviously the traditional real-life event couldn’t take place this year thanks to ol’ COVID-19, so the Finns got creative and opted for the quarantine-friendly platform of virtual reality.
The concert starred JVG - one of Finland’s most popular bands - who performed in a virtual version of Helsinki’s famous Senate Square. Attendees of the celebrations were made up of both locals and international tourists from Germany, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.
Finnish VR studio Zoan was responsible for hosting the massively successful virtual event. In 2018, Zoan - which offers “experience-based services for marketing activations, travel, education, and real estate” - created Virtual Helsinki - a VR replication of the city, allowing people to explore it from anywhere in the world using VR. The idea was to drum up tourism and do cool things like host massively successful virtual events - this latest one being the most ambitious use of Virtual Helsinki to date.
And indeed, their initiative seems to be helping Helsinki maintain its title as 2019’s European Capital of Smart Tourism.
Online concerts are popping up all over the place - including in Fortnite - which have been immensely successful. We’ve seen Travis Scott give a live musical performance in Fortnite that attracted around 12.3 million spectators, and another by Jordan Fisher and Diplo hosted in the game’s recently-released Party Royale mode. Then there’s another big one due to take place this Friday 8th May starring deadmau5, Steve Aoki, and Dillon Francis.
It’s clear that the current global pandemic has forced us to think creatively about ways to keep life going and still provide ways for people to come together - figuratively - to have fun whilst remaining physically apart.
Source: Forbes
