One thing that I have been happy to watch develop overtime is Facebook VR’s Oculus Quest/Quest 2 App, Venues. And what a wonderful time to see a free live concert for Billy Eilish from the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York all courtesy of Facebook VR’s Venues.
So, what is Venues? The app allows one to create an avatar and partake in live (or pre-recorded) events and the app is still currently under the Beta Early Access.
So, how Venues works is that you are whisked into a room before entering the venue. You must first have created your own personal avatar and then you enter the main lobby area. Using your Oculus Touch Controller, you can navigate by selecting a place to walk.
But while in the main lobby, you can join up with a number of other people in their Avatar form. Now the lobby is a place where you have to filter out a lot of things because you can hear discussions. Some people who feel the need to issue profanity and make rude comments or jokes and if you don’t want to partake in it, just don’t listen to it. But if you are a parent, know in advance, if you are having your child watch a live event at the venue, chances are they will hear things that they shouldn’t be listening to.
While you are whisked to a lobby, for a live event, you will see many people but probably several dozen. If you create a party with your friends, you can all visit together but if you don’t, more than likely you will be whisked to different lobbies.
Now I’m not entirely sure how many virtual lobbies there are, nor do I know the Avatar limit, but it seems that Facebook VR has a grouped several dozen people per area, as it would be insane to have hundreds or thousands of people in a lobby and everyone talking all at once.
And within this lobby are events that are currently live or pre-recorded but sometimes, you may come across an event that is live.
And this past Friday, on September 24th, Billy Eilish’s “Love from the Governors Ball Music Festival” was live for many Oculus Quest/Oculus Quest 2 owners to watch.
I was in the Venues lobby about a half hour before the concert began and there were a lot of excited people waiting for it to open. I was right at the front of the lobby teaching people how to use the selfie function on Venues and answering questions how they can watch the concert.
The concert which started at 5:45 PM PST, reminds me of a convention, when everyone waits in line and when admissions opens up, people make a mad dash for it.
In this case, once the venue opens, you are whisked away to section to watch the concert. You notice that they have two levels where about a dozen or so people are separated to various makeshift areas, but no, you don’t have to worry about being placed in a nosebleed section. Nor do you have to worry if you want to stand or sit.
You get to watch the concert in the comfort of your own living room and no one cares if you are sitting or standing and no, no one is going to obstruct your view.
While watching the concert, I was thrilled to see the 180 cameras placed near the stage. From the front, two angles towards the front, one in an area where you can see security and another area you can see fans singing, crying and screaming in delight of watching Billy Eilish perform.
If anything, you are close up to Billy Eilish and as a person who covered many concerts and always got press seating, those who watched the concert on Venues got a chance to be that close and I loved that aspect of watching the concert on VR.
And yes, you can use your Oculus Touch controllers to clap, do thumbs up. No you can’t capture the streaming through your headset’s capture video command, which Facebook VR shuts off once you enter Venues. And yes, you can dance, as you can move your head, your arms and your hands, it was common to see people dancing.
And for the most part, many people I talked to on Venues enjoyed the event.
But there was one caveat and this is something that I wish Facebook VR implements, and that is to mute everyone’s mic once they are whisked into the concert.
For the most part, people were respectable during the concert and muted their mics, but a lot of parents and a lot of children were probably not aware that many people could hear them, until the avatar faces started looking at them and they quickly realized it or left venues.
I heard one guy talking about “I don’t think Facebook’s servers will be able to handle this” and probably was hoping people would communicate and have a conversation during the live concert. Another wanted to share her thoughts on how weird it was to see so many Avatar’s watching and I get it, it’s exciting technology. And then there was a man who wanted to sing along to Billy Eilish and had that raspy, smoker voice. But during a live concert, no one wants to hear that.
Again, the majority of the people are respectful and the live concert on Venues went very well.
In the case of Billy Eilish’s concert, the fact that Facebook VR paid the rights to feature the live concert was a positive considering many people have not had a chance to attend a concert or live event and at this time, many people who aren’t comfortable in going to an event packed with many people with worries due to COVID-19.
After I posted about watching the concert, there are people who were upset that they missed it and hope it will be replayed. There were those who were upset that Facebook VR didn’t promote it but it was promoted on social media and if you are a Venues user, you’ll have to periodically visit the app and see what is happening that week, as there are numerous events that take place.
You could see events through your Oculus app and your headset, but you have to subscribe and follow those events for it to be displayed. Personally, I prefer it that way versus a force-fed ad promotion.
But I do feel that the Billy Eilish concert on Venues was one of the best things to have happened on Venues because it may give companies a chance the idea to experiment with this technology, may it be watching an non-televised live sporting event. Currently WWE has a Venue showing past matchups but for live events, I don’t see major sporting events unless their is a major collaboration may it be with the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL or even sports channels such as ESPN.
The same can be said for conventions such as Comic-Con, K-Con, Anime Japan and many more to test out the technology for panels or events.
In the case of Facebook VR, the fact that they had a live concert shown on Venues is a plus. As the company continues to promote their Oculus brand and the growing attention and growing consumer-based for VR, I do feel that these live concerts will attract people to purchasing the popular VR headset.
The question in the future is the pay model. While it’s great to have free events, business-wise I would imagine companies or organizations would want to jump in if there was something to gain from it.
But overall, I do feel that Billy Eilish’s concert live from the Governors Ball Music Festival via VR courtesy of Facebook VR’s Venues was a success. And I can only hope big updates to come in making the consumer experience much better while watching a Venues event but also for more events to be added each week.
