EXPDSN Issue #5: A Post-Pandemic World
Hello Experientials,
I’ve taken a while with this issue because there’s so much happening, and the world is rapidly changing. In this issue, we explore what a post-pandemic world looks like for experiential creators.
Self-improvement could be here to stay with digital wellness.
The pandemic may soon come to an end, but some of the changes it wrought may be permanent. Now, analysts are trying to predict which pandemic-related changes will disappear once the world returns to “normal”... and which ones will stick around. One shift is a sure bet, though: Health — both physical and mental — will be a bigger priority for most people than it was before.
According to a recent report from the Global Web Index (GWI), consumers were forced to abandon old habits and establish new ones during the pandemic.
As the pandemic comes to an end, though, consumers are likely to stick with some of the new behaviors that they developed — particularly the ones related to health and wellness. Here are some of the significant shifts in consumer behavior that is likely to stick around:
People will spend more time (and money) prioritizing their mental health.
People will work out at home instead of the gym.
People will do most of their shopping online.
So, what does this mean for experiential creators?
Meditation and wellness companies, home gym companies, and online retailers will likely benefit from new consumer behaviors. As creators of experiences, there’s an opportunity for positioning your offering with the context of wellness; after all, it is what you do. For example, FeelReal offers spaces for people to be safe and vulnerable to speak to their anxieties. Frequency offers breathwork classes via Zoom. Quilt, originally envisioned as a physical meet-up startup before COVID did its thing, CEO Ashley Sumner pivoted to an online platform that hosts breakout rooms around spiritual and personal development; career and purpose; and relationships, sex, and family.
The question is, what form of experiential content you can offer for mental, emotional, and psychological wellness.
From Virtual Events to Valued Venues
In late April, Secret Sky, a Livestream music event hosted by electronic musician Porter Robinson, included an interactive 3D and VR component. Active Theory, an L.A. creative agency, built virtual festival grounds on proprietary tech called Dreamwave, which handles all the rendering and networking inside web browsers. As a result, the event logged over 160,000 users, and close to a third of those attended VR through the Oculus browser. By comparison, any VR game attracting over 50,000 users on its first day is considered a wild success.
Certain austere choices helped ground the Secret Sky event and, if anything, made it feel more like an actual festival. The grounds had multiple areas, most of which had a view of the same central “stage,” a screen where the artists’ live streams played to crowds of ghostly avatars. It wasn’t setting out to create a space resembling the real world. But it also refrained from constantly engulfing viewers in visual spectacle, unlike some of the most famous virtual concerts to date.
Dreamwave is not designed solely for music events—it’ll be used to power a virtual storytelling experience for a Wall Street Journal event next week—but Active Theory co-founder and creative director Andy Thelander tells me the company would like to explore using it for an always-on music venue. Similar ideas have recently gained traction in VRChat in digital “clubs” like HOM3 and Loner Online (and likewise, you don’t need a headset to use VRChat).
Perhaps earlier attempts to solve “concerts for VR” generally got things backward: real music venues typically don’t thrive on trying to attract all genres and audiences, so why should virtual and VR concerts work any differently?
Will Twitch DJs still thrive post-pandemic?
The Future. When the pandemic shut down clubs and music venues, it also forced DJs to get creative to stay afloat. Many of them turned to online streaming platforms like Twitch to stay in touch with their fans, and many of them invented entirely new ways to connect with their listeners. Eventually, platforms like Twitch took notice and rolled out tools to support DJs. Some musicians are thinking about continuing to stream even when physical venues open again… but copyright laws and regulatory issues could pose problems.
DJing went digital
When the pandemic began, and business dried up for DJs, they turned to platforms like Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and even Fortnite (and other video games) to share their new music and connect with their fans. Many artists even developed new types of content — regular conversations with fans, art shows, or even dance parties for kids.
And, of course, they also developed innovative ways to continue making money. A few of those methods included:
Paid subscriptions.
Tips from listeners.
Platform payments (Twitch began directly paying artists earlier this year).
Twitch, in particular, became an active ally: despite its original focus on the gaming community, Twitch courted DJs by creating content deals with event promoters, partnering with audio distribution sites, and rolling out a direct payment program for DJs.
But it’s unclear if streaming DJs are here to stay
Despite investing in DJs financially and strategically, Twitch also sent DJs mixed messages: According to the rules of Twitch’s platform rules, mixing music that other artists copyright is forbidden — and, of course, mixing other artists’ music is essential to DJs’ work.
So as the world reopens, many artists and critics have begun to wonder whether Twitch will remain committed to DJs and artists on its platform or if it will simply revert to the pre-pandemic status quo. Although many DJs continue to use (and rely on) Twitch, the site itself has already begun to de-prioritize DJs on its featured pages and encourage artists only to feature certain types of original music.
According to Twitch, these changes merely reflect copyright concerns. But artists who rely on Twitch to make a living won't like the sound of that.
Airbnb’s vision of “belonging anywhere” in a post-pandemic world.
The Future. CEO Brian Chesky believes that the future of travel (and the future of Airbnb) is in longer stays in more varied regions, for both work and pleasure. The new era may also open up demand for Airbnb Experiences to curate these extended stays, which could broaden Airbnb into a lifestyle brand on top of being a travel company.
Business travel as we know it is dead. Instead, workers will book “medium-length stays in regional hubs to get face-time with their teams.”
The end of “Times Square” tourism. To avoid the crowds, people will instead shift to staying in more national parks and small towns.
We’re entering the era of “travel redistribution.” CEO Brian Chesky said, “trips are going to get longer, and traveling and living are going to gradually blur together because, in a world where many people can work from home, they can work from any home.”
Experiences bring people together. Chesky believes that there will be a “collapse” of the traditional tourism players that offer the typical sightseeing tours, leaving a “void” that Airbnb hosts can fill.
Experiences, Chesky suggests, are the solution to the last-mile problem of “belonging anywhere.” The company’s S-1 states that Experiences could eventually compete for the 1.4 trillion that consumers spend each year on sporting events, amusement parks, and spas.
Live Nation is heating up.
Here’s some great news for the live-music industry: Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino said that thanks to the vaccine rollout, “fans are buying tickets, and events are selling out faster than ever.” Never mind that yearly revenue was down 76% to $239 million. Rapino said that next quarter should show the first In addition, thewing. The company is “confidently planning” for concert reopenings, citing that an upcoming Garth Brooks’ concert sold over 50,000 tickets in 30 minutes… beating every Ticketmaster record.
NFTs are everywhere, and Wilder World has the most holistic implementation.
The pandemic brought us virtual worlds, experiences, NFTs, and the metaverse, and all that is here to stay post-pandemic with projects like Wilder World, a $3M venture-backed metaverse.
Wilder World is a fully immersive, 3D virtual world that can be accessed with a VR headset and was started by 3D artist Frank Wilder in collaboration with Zero.Space. Rather than start one more site to sell NFT art, Wilder World is creating a world with the Epic Games’ Unreal Engine using a decentralized team, dubbed a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO.
Here how I believe Wilder World is innovating the NFT space:
Wilder World enables games and economies created in the world. Artists and collectors alike can mint, collect and sell rare digital art.
It’s made up of interactive worlds that you can spend time in with other folks.
NFTs as tickets for hosted events in photo-realistic 3D spaces.
Wilder is fully decentralized and operated as its own DAO called the Wilder Artists Guild. 3D artists become members in exchange for $WILD tokens and receive a percentage of sales based on the art they contribute.
No company or platform gets in-between Guild members, patrons, and collectors.
There’s utility. The early NFTs sit in a wallet and do not enable any real-world use beyond being purchased, viewed, and (potentially) resold. In Wilder, NFTs are 3D, photorealistic, and useful. They are “metaverse ready,” with 3D hats you can wear, vehicles you can race, and apartments you can own, Wilder said.
Frank Wilder is world-building, and he’s thinking about a lot more facets than most platforms care to consider. There’s a lot of clever decisions here that I, for one, am certainly paying attention to.
Sundance keeps things hybrid in 2022
After its 2021 edition successfully went all-virtual, the Sundance Institute announced its 2022 Sundance Film Festival will go hybrid. Set to run January 20-30, the festival will mix virtual offerings on top of its physical showcase in its long-running home of Park City, Utah. The move makes sense after the 2021 virtual fest was such a hit — bringing in twice the audience of the typical in-person fest despite having fewer films to program.
Museum of Digital Artists, calling NFT artists.
Museum of Digital Art (MōDA) is a metaverse art gallery that showcases the best digital artist on the chain. The opening show will be on July 1st with the theme of “Mesmerized” as an exploration of “attention as the center of consciousness.”
If you or someone you know is an NFT artist, please apply or come check it out.
How different this world is today from the one we lived in just 365 days ago makes me feel like a time traveler. New paths are being forged, old ones being taken with new perspectives, and we’re living in the most interesting period of our civilization. Of course, no one knows the future, but one thing is clear, Experiences will be the defining tool of our lifetime.
Damian Madray
Editor, EXPDSN