On the heels of the successful completion of our immersive 360 project with the Philharmonia Orchestra, New Business Director Jay Short headed to Barcelona to speak on virtual reality and music at the Future Music Forum festival.
Future Music Forum is an annual international music conference based in Barcelona that gathers the leading minds in the world of music to exchange views on how music is being shared in today’s digital age and discuss new developments taking place in music technology.
The 7th Annual Future Music Forum kicked off with the theme Finding the Next Music Industry, focusing on change and disruption in the music industry. Over three days, the event saw speakers from BBC Radio 6, British Sky Broadcasting, Shazam, Kickstarter and Sony discussing .
Jay took to the stage on Tuesday to sit on The Future of Virtual Reality in the Music Industry panel to discuss the opportunities virtual reality can bring to the industry in relation to streaming and video content, music production and technology. Other panelists included:
Moderator : Peter Malla, Founder & Editor at Cone Magazine
Panelists : Jose Luis de Vicente, Curator for Sónar+D
Bjorn Lindborg, Music Industry Executive, Music Tech Advisor and Entrepreneur /
Marcus Behrendt, Chief Marketing Officer at VRTIFY
The use of music in VR has been seeing a lot of interesting innovations. There’s a focus on games, visualizers, and music videos. VR has great potential in music to better engage the audience on a visceral level. With the help of VR, the music comes to us in a special way. VR lets us experience and connect to music more personally than ever before
Barcelona was a beautiful setting for a very frank and honest panel discussion with some of the leading figures in terms of both the technology and music industries. Whilst there is reason for excitement around virtual reality and the potential applications for the music industry, we spoke about the need for caution and a clear understanding as to both the possibilities and limitations of the technology. Post-panel, I was privileged to meet some very interesting people from within the music industry and continue discussions. It is clear there is a thirst for information around virtual reality and this can only be a good thing. – Jay Short, New Business & Sales Director