Virtual Concerts of the Future
Hi everyone!!
COVID-19 has brought about many abrupt and uncertain changes in our lives, and while we stay optimistic of overcoming this pandemic, we also know that we will have to get used to living in this ‘new normal’. But is this ‘new normal’ really so bad?
Navigating through the pandemic has been very confusing and difficult for all of us, but even more so for artists and musicians whose livelihood depends for the most part on putting on concerts and performances for their fans. With the current situation that we are in, where the whole world is either on lockdown or subjected to safe distancing regulations, it is almost impossible for these artists to hold concerts and perform like they used to. As such, many artists have been trying to figure out new ways to modify their concert experience to accommodate this ‘new normal’.
On one hand, some artists have chosen to follow through with holding live in-person concerts with a socially distanced audience, as can be seen below:
While on the other hand, some artists have chosen to follow the trend of this pandemic and go fully digital with live online concerts held on streaming services and social media. Artists such as Chris Martin, John Legend, Billie Eilish and BTS have all held online concerts for their fans during this pandemic. According to John Legend, “A lot of artists have decided they want to make staying home a little bit easier for everybody”.
While some of these artists, such as Chris Martin and John Legend, are holding these online concerts completely free, others are trying to earn some money from it to make up for the lack of income they are making with the many shows that had to be cancelled as a result of the pandemic. Billie Eilish livestreamed her ‘Where Do We Go’ concert live on her website with a $30 admission fee and Niall Horan did a livestream from the Royal Albert Hall, where all profits from the show went to his touring crew and the newly launched #WeNeedCrew initiative.
What does this mean for our environment?
Positive:
As mentioned in one of my previous posts ‘Aftermath of Live Music Events’, Live music events such as concerts and music festivals pollute our environment through Noise, Air, Plastic and Water pollution. As such the lack of these events happening this year, as a result of this pandemic, is not a bad thing for our environment.
With international travel put on hold for most of the world, the thousands of people who would usually travel across the country or even across the world to attend these events are unable to do so. As such, there is a drastic decrease in the energy consumption through transport of the attendees of these events as well as the artist and crew themselves.
Apart from that, all the pollution that would have come about as a result of the event itself, such as Noise pollution, Water pollution, Particle pollution and Plastic pollution would not happen.
Negative:
However, that being said, having everything online is not as good for the environment as it seems. As mentioned in one of my earlier posts ‘Streaming Hurts More Than It Helps’, it takes an enormous amount of electricity to power the intensive server farms that is needed to make digital streaming available to everyone. For Niall Horan’s livestream concert in Royal Albert Hall, over 90,000 tickets were sold. This means that there were over 90,000 people streaming his concert at once and in doing so, they caused massive greenhouse gas emissions due to the large amounts of fossil fuels that needed to be burnt to help power the server farms. Now, if just one livestream concert can cause this much pollution, imagine how much more greenhouse gases are being emitted into our environment from all the online concerts combined.
So, while moving from physical to digital concerts did eliminate part of the pollution problem caused by these events, it also created an entirely new pollution problem.
Is there a future for live online concerts post pandemic?
All that being said, there are ways to make these online performances less pollutive, such as having viewings where a whole group of (socially distanced) people will watch one livestream. This reduces the number of livestreams happening and thus reduces the environmental impact as well.
Therefore, the question we must now ask ourselves is “is there a future for this type of live concerts in a post pandemic era?” According to Michael Kaminsky, an adjunct professor at USC’s Thorton School of Music, “The experience of a traditional concert is an exclusive model and will never go away”. However, he also mentioned that “we’ve also had that model for decades and decades and decades… I think live and virtual concerts will coexist [with] each other- and it’s going to be very interesting to see which ones will continue to excite the fanbase”.
Thus, the future of virtual concerts as of now is still unknown to us. However, this pandemic has opened the eyes of many artists to the idea of virtual concerts, and has provided it as an option for them in the future, whether they choose to pursue it or not.
Resources:
How to watch Niall Horan’s Royal Albert Hall concert online. (2020, November 06). Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/niall-horan-live-stream-royal-albert-hall-watch-b1640643.html
Donovanxrusso. (2020, March 20). Chris Martin, John Legend, Bono and the future of the livestreamed concert beyond coronavirus. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/chris-martin-bono-and-future-of-virtual-concert-after-coronavirus.html
Tan, V. (2020, September 18). Guide to socially distanced concerts around the world: What the future of music events look like. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.bandwagon.asia/articles/guide-to-socially-distanced-concerts-list-2020-around-the-world-what-the-future-of-music-events-look-like-germany-bangkok-thailand-united-kingdom-uk-america-ukraine
Nicole Antounian, C. (n.d.). Weighing the viability of virtual concerts. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/10/15/weighing-the-viability-of-virtual-concerts/