Supported by Heineken Live Your Music.
Bringing a whole new experience to Electric Picnic.
Heineken are set to unleash their Live Your Music experience at this year’s Electric Picnic, bringing a whole new level of audience participation to the event. The Live Your Music space will host Electric Picnic’s first-ever 360-degree lighting rig, CO2 cannons and over 20 DJs and MCs – and the whole thing will be powered by the crowd.
How does that work, you ask? Well, the custom built Heineken Starmometer can gauge the audience’s energy by measuring sound levels, the crowd’s movement and the heat that they’re generating. And if the crowd really lifts the roof off the place, they can even unlock a few surprises! The Live Your Music space will host a star-studded musical line-up that includes The Magician, DJ Yoda, Tough Love, Arveene and many more.
This innovative approach got us thinking about how technology can turn a gig into a whole new experience. Here are five examples of technology being used to blow the audience’s minds.
1. Perfume at SXSW
Clip via Rag[567]
We’re still not entirely sure what this is but it looks pretty insane! Japanese pop band Perfume unleashed a futuristic assault on the senses at SXSW in 2015. 3D effects, motion capture technology and dynamic projection combined to create something that looks like it should be in a scifi film about a dystopian techno future.
2. The Tupac “hologram”
Clip via westfesttv
Tupac Shakur’s posthumous output would put many living artists to shame but nobody expected to see the rapper take to the stage 15 years after his death. The most memorable moment of Coachella 2012 was undoubtedly when two-dimensional technology was used to facilitate this eerie onstage collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. Strictly speaking, Tupac wasn’t an actual “hologram” but he was the only thing that people were talking about after the festival.
3. Iron Man 2’s AC/DC promo
Clip via Event Management Institute
OK, so technically this is more like performance art than a concert but it used AC/DC and some amazing projection mapping to create a spectacular music and sound show. Rochester Castle was transformed as part of this promo for Iron Man 2 and we’re calling it as the best use of a castle outside of a Game of Thrones episode.
4. Dan Deacon uses the crowd as a light show
https://youtu.be/e5TAo1dS0vs
Clip via Rob Eagar
Deacon brought audience participation to a new level when he launched his own app, which people could use to become part of the light show at his gig. The app would turn participants’ phones into a source of light and sound based on where they were in the venue. With 10,000 people using the app to create patterns of light among the audience, it was a neat twist on the old “hold a lighter in the air” trick.
5. The Gorillaz come to life
Clip via Gorillaz
One of the problems with being a band that’s full of fictional cartoon characters is that it’s notoriously difficult to translate that into a stage show. The Gorillaz got around this by using holographic technology to bring the band’s characters to life at the MTV Awards. The result is surreal but pretty dang impressive.
Join the crowd and sign up for exclusive experiences at the Heineken website, Facebook or Twitter. #LiveYourMusic. Please drink responsibly.
Supported by Heineken Live Your Music.
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