The First VR Concert

Our friends over at Mashable are reporting about the recent Oculus Venue concert from Vance Joy. Vance performed at the Colorado Red Rock Amphitheatre and it was beamed across the world as a live VR concert.

It was part of a brand new feature that’s available for the Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR. A feature that allows users to watch live events with friends in VR! To show off this cool feature Facebook offered a free concert from Australian Vance Joy to concert goers back in May. It wasn’t pre-recorded and beamed across the world like a DVD showing. It was an actual live event. A first for Facebook/Oculus but not a brand new thing. To be eligible for this you had to have an Oculus Account, the Oculus iOS/Android App and a Oculus Go or Gear VR headset. Bad luck any of you top of the line Oculus owners, you were out of luck. Then open up the Venue section and connect to the event.

Event

Just like in real life you sit down in a stadium , albeit a virtual one, looking at the Red Rock Amphitheatre. Look around and it’s filled with other VR concert goers in avatar form. You are able to watch in both solo mode or with others in social mode too. While as you would expect social mode allows you to chat with other fans, in an attempt from Oculus to make it feel like an actual concert. Like you’re there, without actually being there. If you are wondering too, you can chat to them using your voice and not messaging one another. Though as Oculus is Facebook owned, if you share common interests with the person next to you, it will show up on screen.

VR concert: Behaviour

As is like the real world you’re going to have to behave yourself, upon entering the arena, Mashable are reporting that you are presented with a code of conduct screen. Which we’re not sure if many people will read, yet, Mashable are reporting that it states not to harass, use any offensive language or display anti-social behaviour. So like in real life at concerts. Don’t be a d*ck.

If someone is being the aforementioned body part you can click on their avatar and Facebook will look into it. While they may not get kicked out straight away, you are able to mute and block them. If only that feature could work in the real world. However, you can add them as an Oculus friend. You can turn up the music and turn down the chat volume of the crowd too. With Mashable reporting that this was a real pleasing part of the experience! To add to this experience trumping a real life concert, there are no phones in your face recording the event. People are too busy enjoying the music or talking to one another. Something that really should happen in real life in all honesty.

Is it worth it?

Enjoy music at home, without the commute home, pushing and shoving, drugged up skinny teenagers trying to sell you dodgy pills, p*ss bottles, should know better middle aged people trying to be cool or the rowdy couple who couldn’t wait to get home. While all that sounds rather inviting and pleasing, maybe that’s what concerts are all about. The experience, the atmosphere isn’t just the same as being there. That’s what it feels like, hopefully we get the chance to experience this in How To Kill An Hour towers ourselves, as it seems rather intriguing!

Click here to purchase Oculus Go or Samsung Gear