Meta VR Super Bowl FOO FIGHTERS Show last night, getting the best the best the best of you?

Last night was expected to be a major milestone for those of us in the Metaverse industry. Meta hosted a free show on Horizon Venues to watch the Foo Fighters perform in a VR concert. Time of the show February 13th 8 PM PT

The show was directed by Mark Romanek and is set to feature a mixture of practical effects and XR elements that will see physical and virtual spaces blend into one.

Without hesitation - Foo Fighters! - I set my Quest next to bed and alarm clock at 3:45 am UK time determined to experience the best and latest of immersive concerts with a number of questions in mind:

1) How many will we be? (what is the size of the VR market at the moment?)

2) How would they solve the challenge of getting us all in the same concert instance? Would the system hold...?

3) What "XR elements" and VFX will allow to break out from the physical reality the virtual world?

Here my observations:

1 - Number of users

I updated my avatar for a concert style and when I joined at exactly 4 am UK time (8 PM PT) over 7K people were in the VR concert.

As I clicked to join, I received a notification the lobby was unaccessible for the moment and to try again in a minute. And so I tried again....and again...the number of users joining was increasing but very slowly. At 4:15 AM I opened up Facebook Live to see the status of the concert. It was definitely live, with 23,5 K users. That was exciting, the Meta VR experience had a size of attendance at a ratio of 1 to 3 versus Facebook, a definite sign of a ready VR market place, so exciting for all us working in this space.

I continued clicking to enter the VR concert while starting to chat live with others on Facebook to find out if anyone had a trick to get in. No trick... Ok let's just be patient, click, click, exit the app, relaunch the app, renter, click again....:-)

When I saw 9 K users, I took out my calculator and estimated the average time it would take if hypotetically 23K users would like to join. I concluded Meta was able to get around 250 of us per minute and so I would have to wait up to 56 minutes to get in. I decided to stick around.

Once the live concert ended, the user count that maxed out at 13K in VR started to go down. That's when I got in.

2) How would they solve the challenge of getting us all in the same concert instance? Would the system hold...?

This was the most important question of all for me. Obviously I knew there was concerning issues at this point.

I first got into the lobby, where I saw around 15 users walking around, then teleported to the concert venue where I arrived first. There was 3 virtual terraced stands to choose from and a big 5 minutes count down clock on the concert screen. So that's when I knew I was being "batched" in an instance. That part is magical when you think of it, data and bites flowing over the Atlantic :-)

I had absolutely expected this as this is how a French agency had managed the Jean-Michel Jarre VR concert "Alone Together" in 2020. Since I read the article from Skarredghost, a member of the French developper team "how to organize vr concert lessons", I knew the issue of running a real-time concert for thousands of people was a major tech challenge. Skarredghost clearly explained how only the first batch of users in the session got the real time experience and interactive VFX experience. All other guest essentially were getting a caught up packaged version with fixed in time VFX.

Still, I was hoping the instance would host more users. We were around 10 in the session, enough to give the vibe of a shared experience but widely insufficient for rising adrenaline levels with that feeling of excitement one only gets when sharing a moment with thousands of people. Real time shared instants between people and with the artists is what makes "the Jazz".

3) What "XR elements" and VFX allow to break out from the physical reality to the virtual world?

The FOO FIGHTERS, have a superb presence so the 10 of us in the audience were arms up moving to the beat. But what about overlaying virtual effects on top of the physical concert capture? Isn't that the whole point of a VR concert?

Reality: the concert had been equiped with multiple super high tech 180 cameras to capture the Foo from every angles. We could see the impressive equipment from the virtual terrass. I felt the distance to stage was too close and that I had Dave Grohl in my face, so I stepped away to the middle back of the virtual terrass for a more chilled sensation and broader point of view. This is a unique opportunity with VR versus physical, you have the freedom to chose your spatial position.

Virtual and VFX: On top of the Foo Fighters, the stage hosted a circular neon light that displayed ramdomised computer virtual visual effects (think of your screen saver), nothing that would make you stop to watch if you are not purposefully (for work insight) seeking them. My hopes was to see human creative work around VFX, lighting, staging. What about virtual screens showing the real life audience on a side? Or having the song lyrics or other data overlayed...anyhing that would make the virtual environment augment the human experience by technology.

Then we had the possibility to create a virtual NFL ball with your avatar and to throw it in the air, as well as shooting confettis or Facebook thumbs above your head.

My favorite song of this concert was "Home". With the piano notes, the dark lighting shutting down the rest of the stage environment and retaining just one spotlight on the singer, that was really immersive and yet simple.

To conclude

This was a worthwhile experience, because for one, the Foo Fighters are awesome and second, because it's good to see where we are at with the metaverse. 13K concurrent users is good! In the end, that was half the number of what Facebook Live had, a sure sign the market is ready and warmed up. It took too long to ramp up the user instances, 250 per minute is simply to slow...or get everyone checked in 1 hour before the start with a pre-recorded warm up band? Finally, to me working on effects to augment the experience is a must, as otherwise, the virtual world will remain a degraded version of the reality. But all in all, we are on the right track, it's amazing to see how long the industry has progressed since the Rift first kickstarter campaign in 2012 "step into the game".

I look forward to read up the critics from the deveoper world and users who attended.