The era of COVID-19 has changed the way we experience life, but what if you could still see concerts and yet also feel like you were there?
While the coronavirus has made an impact on how we live our lives, technology has a chance to remedy some of it. Computers and high-speed broadband are no doubt a great assist in the work from home era, and phones and video chat are helping us stay in touch with friends family, but much of our lives are impacted.
Take making your way to a music concert: this is practically on hold due to social distancing issues and a lack of flight, keeping international acts and tours delayed for the foreseeable future, at least until this is all solved.
However with more emphasis on VR on the way from Oculus thanks to the new Quest headset, there might be a solution waiting in the wings of the virtual music hall.
This week, Tidal has announced that it will partner with Oculus to reimagine the live performance, connecting filmed music performances through concerts live-streamed to Oculus VR headsets, allowing you to maintain social distancing, and yet still see concerts in a remote and virtual way.
In a way, it will be like sitting in the front row, albeit sharing the same front row seat with everyone, playing a video in an interactive concert hall, with high quality audio streamed to your ears.
“At a time when livestreamed performances are seen as the new norm, Tidal’s partnership with Oculus provides music lovers an elevated concert experience with more interaction and dimension than past livestreams,” said Lior Tibon, Chief Operating Officer of Tidal.
“Oculus is revolutionising the live music experience and matched with Tidal’s HiFi audio quality, members will be able to remember what it feels like to stand in a large crowd at a concert venue,” he said.
Tidal hasn’t quite said what concerts will be live-streamed, except to say that it will offer streams of concerts later in the year “with some of the biggest names in music”. Tidal has previously been connected with the likes of Jay-Z who is one of the co-owners of the service, while the service itself has previously offered artist events for Jennifer Lopez, Anderson .Paak, and other artists.
Just who Tidal plans to livestream to Oculus at the moment remains to be seen (and heard), but it won’t be limited to the Oculus VR headsets, we’re told. While Tidal will offer VR livestreams to Oculus headset owners through the Venues app, the streaming service will reportedly also offer the streamed concerts through the Tidal service, as well.
For now, the Tidal VR streams are yet another feature set to arrive later in the year, alongside additions such as Dolby Atmos audio and the high-res MQA audio offered on the platform, features not yet found on other music services at this time.
