MIDƐM+ is set to return to Cannes, France to kick off the start of 2024. Taking place from 24 to 27 January, the second instalment of the festival will host several key immersive events linked to the music industry.
The event aims to serve as a forum, marketplace, and music festival for connecting professionals, brainstorming ideas, hosting panel talks, and driving success for musicians worldwide.
MIDƐM+ will also tackle several challenges from the sector, offering decisive, cogent solutions artists face when engaging with audiences.
The event’s theme of DISTORTION aims to disrupt conventional approaches to music, namely with fresh innovative solutions such as virtual, augmented, and immersive reality (VR/AR/MR), artificial intelligence (AI), the blockchain, and Generative AI (GenAI).
For example, the rebranded event will gather people for a Public Affairs Summit to train new artists, deliver best practices, and increase the number of opportunities for musicians.
Additionally, MIDƐM+ will launch its Music Seekers+ (MuSee) community aimed at creating a dialogue between global leaders in the industry and its creatives.
Some of the topics linked to immersive technologies include ‘Music in Gaming and Virtual Realities,’ ‘Music’s Worth in the AI Era: Progress or Downfall’, and many others.
Speakers from across the immersive and musical world will team up and will include the following:
- Sébastien Borget, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, The Sandbox
- Robin Wauters, Founder, Tech.eu
- Anne McKinnon, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Ristband
- Lorrain de Silva, Managing Directo, Best Nights VC
- Bruce Hamilton, General Partner, Everybody Ventures
- Nick Holmsten, Founder and Co-Chief Executive, TSX Entertainment
- Per Sundin, Chief Executive, Pophouse Entertainment
- Oscar Höglund, Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Epidemic Sound
- Aranyaka Verma, Founder, Off the Wilderness
The news comes after MIDƐM+ opened a contest to promote startups formed in or after 2020 with less than €1 million in funding. Via its MIDƐM+ Start-Up Battles competition, the event supported a host of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Web3, VR, AR, MR, artificial intelligence (AI), and others.
It has also selected 50 finalists to compete for the main prize of MIDƐM+ 2024. Firms entering the competition can register at https://www.midem.com/midem-register.
The Music Industry Expands with XR
The announcement comes at a pivotal time when the music industry turns to immersive solutions to promote, enhance, and build a new era of music, a prominent industry vertical for XR.
This comes at a crucial time in music history where artists and record labels struggle to generate revenues but conversely, have developed new mediums for expression and engage with larger audiences.
Web3, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and creative content have also allowed artists to leverage real-time 3D (RT3D) content for music videos, live stage performances, and others.
The Creativity Conference
The news also comes just months after The Creativity Conference, which showcased the key benefits of interweaving creativity across the immersive, architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC), music, and enterprise sectors, among many other topics.
Regarding music, Samantha Tauber, Chief Executive and Founder, VNCCII, explored the topic of creativity via XR technologies in the music scene.
The award-winning artist combines her groundbreaking style of artistry and storytelling with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and Abelton. She is also a regular contributor to the XR Big News series.
MTV and Snap Inc
Additionally, several key tech companies have begun developing XR solutions to help the music industry engage fans and creatives in novel ways.
For example, MTV partnered with Snap for the Video Music Awards (VMAs), allowing audiences to vote on their favourite artists using Snap Lens.
The first-ever collaboration between Snap and MTV leveraged the former’s Camera Kit software developer kit (SDK) for creating augmented reality experiences.
The experience allowed voters to also submit Snap-powered selfies for sharing across social media, leading to the television channel’s most engaging event in recent history.
Ready Player Me, WMG, UMG, and The Sandbox
Furthermore, Ready Player Me stepped up its Web3 efforts with a trove of interoperable avatars from their Premium Skins Catalogue.
Teaming up with Warner Music Group (WMG), Universal Music Group’s Bravado subsidiary, and others, the partnership created monetisable skins for ITV Studio’s ‘The Voice’ and several key entertainment, gaming, and music brands.
Two of the key companies joining the MIDƐM+ event—WMG and The Sandbox—also joined forces with metaverse platform Gamefam to promote several initiatives such as concerts and online communities.
The platform, Rhythm City, developed a huge catalogue of digital assets on Roblox, leading to massive levels of engagement between the record labels’ artists and their respective fans.
Roblox has become the largest metaverse platform in the world, hosting major brands such as NIKE, National Hockey League (NHL), House of Blueberry, and much more.
XR Today Interview with Ristband
Also, XR Today’s Rory Greener interviewed Roman Rappak, Chief Commercial Officer and Co-Founder, Ristband, to discuss inclusivity in Web3 and metaverse platforms.
At the time Rappak stated that the rise of XR and Web3 technologies had created a counterculture movement. The emerging technologies eventually created a diverse environment conducive to creativity “compared to the gaming and music scene.
He added that the XR industry had created a “really good chance of making something important.”
Avenged Sevenfold’s M Shadows, Ryan McKinnon
Finally, one of the world’s biggest rock music acts, Avenged Sevenfold, explored Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, along with a catalogue of NFTs and Web3 technologies for their most recent album, ‘Life is But a Dream.’
Speaking to XR Today, Matthew Charles Sanders (M Shadows), Vocalist and Artist, Avenged Sevenfold, explained how these immersive technologies allowed his band to expand engagement with audiences.
The spatial tools also generated fresh revenue streams and boosted the band’s creative expression in unprecedented ways.
Ryan McKinnon, Freelance XR Artist, also debuted the band’s first-ever VR video ‘We Love You,’ developed on Unreal Engine, which showcased fresh creative approaches to the band’s musical direction.
For more information, kindly visit https://www.midem.com/.
