What the music industry isn't seeing about VR

Streaming sells a view. VR can sell a seat in the room. Almost nobody is selling it yet.

Saturday night I had DDG's birthday party up on the TV. Packed room, chains everywhere, a crowd shoulder to shoulder, and a sub goal in the corner ticking toward 27,000. Chat was going crazy. And it hit me: every single person in that chat was watching from the outside, on a flat screen, like a music video.

I've DJed enough rooms to know what that misses. The feeling of a party isn't the picture of it. It's being in it.

A view vs. a seat

Streaming already sells access. You get to see the party, the studio, the show. What it can't sell is presence: turning your head and seeing the crowd behind you, the artist walking up to the camera like they're walking up to you. That's the one thing VR does that nothing else can.

Who's doing it right now

A few big names have tried it. AmazeVR makes polished 3D concerts for the Meta Quest with artists like Megan Thee Stallion and T-Pain. deadmau5 has done metaverse shows with Soundscape. Metallica did an Apple Vision Pro experience, and U2 opened the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Notice the pattern: superstars, big budgets, and a production company in the middle. Polished, pre-built shows. Nothing raw, nothing live, and nothing for the independent artist or the streamer-rapper who lives on Twitch and Kick.

Where the gap is

• The party. A room holds a few hundred people. A VR front-row seat has no capacity limit. Keep the flat stream free and sell the seat.
• The studio. Fans only get clips after the fact. VR puts them on the couch in the booth while the song gets made. That's a monthly membership.
• Through their eyes. The artist wears the headset and chat sees the night the way they see it: the walk in, the stage, the crowd reacting to them.

What a 3D concert actually is

It's filmed with a camera that has two lenses side by side, like your two eyes. In a headset each eye gets its own picture, your brain reads depth, and the artist looks like they're standing in front of you instead of flat on a screen. That's the whole trick.

What I'm doing about it

Testing it myself before I pitch anybody. One 3D-180 camera dead center in the room for one of my own sets, then I watch it back in a Quest. If presence hits the way I think it will, that clip is the pitch. I'll post how it goes.

My opinions and paper trades, not financial advice. Small-cap stocks can lose value fast. Do your own homework.