Have you heard about The Metaverse Festival? If not, you have less than 24 hours to deck your Decentraland avatar out in the best virtual fashion wearables you can find in preparation for this four-day virtual extravaganza. In addition, this free-to-attend event boasts an immense lineup of musical talent from around the world. 3LaU, Paris Hilton, Deadmau5, and over 80 other top artists will be doing dedicated sets in a beautiful virtual fairground built out in Decentraland, which you can witness for yourself here.
The four-day festival will include all of what you might expect at a physical music festival. From digital merch stands to virtual food trucks. The Decentraland team describes the event as a “celebration of music, culture, and creativity in the virtual social world of Decentraland.” And according to their website, one can describe the event as “a grand collision of light, sound, and portable toilets.” Sounds like every good IRL music festival I’ve been to!
For anyone that is a fan of Decentraland, videogames, or virtual worlds in general, you don’t want to miss this event. According to the Decentraland team, “It’s the first event of its kind.” And that seems to be true! Outside of one-of virtual concert events such as Travis Scott or Ariana Grande’s metaverse debuts via Fortnite – a fully decentralized celebration of music featuring a significant lineup of artists has yet to be pulled off at this scale. Having worked with them directly in the past, I’m beyond confident in the Decentraland team’s ability to flawlessly pull off this massive undertaking.
This is by no means a simple undertaking. From curating a lineup of artists, building out the voxel architecture of the fairground, securing sponsors, curating a “psychedelic sculpture garden,” and more- I have to give a massive bravo to Sam, Adam, and the entire global team over at Decentraland. I’ve written in the past about how metaverse solutions such as Decentraland allow us to create and experience spectacles that might not be possible or feasible in the physical world. (Check out my article on the miracle of virtual sculptures here). However, this music festival is taking this notion to a new level. Bringing a whole new realm of accessibility to the metaverse, listeners from around the world will be able to attend a virtual festival boasting some of their favourite artists! Coming out of a pandemic where most of us spent the past year isolated from events of this kind, this is truly a beautiful endeavour that I’m sure will touch people of all kinds from around the world.
How else might a fan in a remote part of the world get to see Paris Hilton or Deadmau5 DJ this year? This event is bringing unparalleled access to the music industry and genuinely innovating in regards to what possibilities the concept of a “metaverse” can present.
If you aren’t aware, Decentraland opened to the public in early 2020 as a user-owned metaverse run on the Ethereum blockchain. This virtual world is governed as a DAO wherein its users can buy, sell, and develop “LAND.” More than simply a video game, this virtual world was initially created as an interactive version of the internet or social media for owners of VR headsets. However, due to the lack of mass adoption of virtual reality thus far, the team opened Decentraland as an XR experience on the traditional internet to gain users and iterate their services.
According to the company’s head of marketing Fede Molina: “Decentraland is now used by more than 70k users every month,” and throughout 2020 and 2021, Molina managed to grow the “community from a few hundred to over a million members.” In the past few years of Decentraland, we’ve seen numerous businesses manage to create virtual experiences for their users ranging from Art Galleries, to Fashion Boutiques, to Casinos, and now music festivals!
I’m excited to experience a new level of virtual interactivity in experiencing this first iteration of a metaverse music festival. As someone myself who used to very much enjoy attending music festivals before the pandemic, this to me is going to bring a whole new realm of possibilities to the festival circuit. The world has been changed permanently, but companies like Decentraland are innovating so that we can be more connected than ever. I look forward to seeing the reactions of attendees and am sure that this event will be a massive success.
If you’d like to join in the fun and witness “a weird and wonderful brew of world-class headline acts, mind-blowing stages, games, exclusive artist merch, collectibles and more;” make sure you tune in from October 21st-24th for this historic metaverse event:
DCL Coordinates: https://play.decentraland.org/?island=Ikbss&position=-67%2C82&realm=fenrir
Official Website: https://themetaversefestival.io/
Event Calander: https://events.decentraland.org/
