SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/654804
3 8 S X S W o r l d | M U S I C M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | S X S W. C O M ach New Year's Day, Ted Cohen invites everyone he knows in Los Angeles over to his house for breakfast. As managing partner of the digital-entertainment consulting firm TAG Strategic, he'll usually have some high-tech toys for guests to play with. This year's attraction was two of Samsung's "Gear VR" headsets – virtual-reality goggles through which people could watch footage from concerts, or movie scenes like flying through space wreckage in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. "Every single person giggled when they put them on," Cohen reports. "No one who tries them has ever gone, 'Why would I want this?' Everybody raves, 'This is amazing.' And we are in a period now where people will look at virtual reality and either adopt it or say, 'I'll look at this again in a few years.' We're getting to price points where it's feasible to think they'll adopt it. When Samsung dropped Gear's price to $99, I bought two pairs. When they'd been $200, I was bor- rowing them from friends." Cohen will be among the participants at this year's South By Southwest panels about virtual reality, which is on the cusp of breaking out from cool novelty to important new medium (and revenue-generator). Several factors are contributing to that shift, starting with the price points cited by Cohen, as well as the popularity of 360 videos that offer more of an immersive viewing experience. "For me, 360 video is a starting point," says Jake Lee-High, cre- ative director and CEO of the New York-based innovation lab Future Colossal and another South By Southwest panelist. "It's not a true virtual-reality medium, but 360 has paved the way by introducing people to immersive content and getting them comfortable with the idea. They're ready for consumption now, and it's being slowly adopted by bands. The next several months will tell us a lot." Panelist Kevin Cornish, a virtual-reality filmmaker who has done projects with Taylor Swift and other artists, says that virtual reality will reach critical mass when it has a break- through piece of content. He likens this next level to what Michael Jackson's Thriller did for music videos, or director James Cameron's Avatar did for 3D movies. "In 2016, everybody knows virtual reality is going to be a huge thing, but we don't yet know the most effective way to grab eyeballs," says Cornish. "So this year is like launching a pilot program – so that when it hits the mass market in 2017, you'll be ready to do something informed, educated and right for your brand. At the highest levels, everybody's looking for their next move. A lot of artists are very eager to get into it, but the question is how soon the technology will be there to deliver a mass-market experience. Artists don't want to have their name on the first one if it doesn't work." The next level of virtual reality will go beyond 360 videos to become more of a truly immersive experience. Instead of just watching from the crowd, you'll virtually climb onstage at a show to experience it from the singer's vantage point – or from any where else you like. This is already happening in the gaming field with things like the virtual-reality version of The Walking Dead, in which you're armed with a shotgun and put in the midst of virtual zombies. "Game-engine technology is where virtual reality is really exciting right now, where you're walking through it and interacting with the elements," says Lee-High. "You can create amazing worlds that can't be experienced elsewhere, and experience is one of the main ways for acts to monetize themselves now. It's a new venue to play with much greater reach than a single location, and also lower barriers to entry." When speaking of the virtual-reality live-concert experience, Cohen preaches two things: Make it great, and make it cheap. "If it's going to take off, virtual reality will have to super-serve the fan without catering to the label or the manager or the production company or any other agenda," Cohen says. "It has to be about the fan experience, and ideally cost about $20 because there's something psychological about a $20 bill. At that price, I think you could get hundreds of thousands of people for a marquee event like Coachella. And for venues with age limits, this can create the next generation of fans by letting them be there virtually and have as close an experi- ence as possible. To do that, you don't make it price prohibitive." So far, virtual reality's main focus has been on live festival and branded events. But there are other possible aspects to it, including some that might even rejuvenate the long-suffering record industry. "One thing labels are trying to figure out is putting virtual-reality visualizers into their back catalog," says Cornish. "So the stuff on video screens for Taylor Swift's last tour, imagine a 360 version that puts you in the middle of that with her album playing. Labels could do that with every artist and album in their catalog. It's a new medium to exploit, and those conversations are happening now." T "Virtual Reality and the Rebirth of the Music Video" with Jake Lee-High and Kevin Cornish, part of the VR/AR program track at the Hilton Austin Down- town, is tomorrow (Friday, March 18). See schedule.sxsw.com for all details. Can Immersive Music Content Help VR/AR Market Take Off? by daVid Menconi E K N U T N I E H U S