Building a festival in Virtual Reality

Lockdown has presented us with some incredibly unique challenges, from how we communicate internally as a team to simple things like buying food. As we adjusted to this ‘new normal’ we saw a lot of our event industry friends cancel festival after festival or try to salvage what they could to bring their content online.

As festival organisers ourselves (see Design Manchester), we have been glued to developments to understand how can we deliver anything this year. How to keep everyone safe and still deliver a festival that reflects the creative organisation we have built over eight years – a pretty impossible task.

Around three weeks ago we were shown something in the works which turned the idea of a “virtual festival” on its head. This was a fully virtual platform, a real world built completely from scratch in which you could walk around, socialise and experience music and art, all through a VR headset or in first player gaming mode. Curated by the team behind Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, this was set to be the world’s largest VR music and arts festival.

We are good friends with Kaye Dunnings, the Creative Director of Shangri-La at Glastonbury, having invited Kaye and the team to get involved in Design Manchester in the past and working with Sundae Communications who handle all of their PR.

Kaye and Robin from Shangri-La had been working with a number of partners here in the UK (VR Jam) and the US (Wookey/Sansar) to create something completely unique and we were given the opportunity to help shape the look and feel of the festival. Alongside the branding and marketing, we are also helping to curate internal artworks with the mercurial Malcolm Garrett which will result in an entirely new exhibition within the virtual Lost Horizon landscape.

From the beginning of the project, the Lost Horizon team were clear that they wanted to test the boundaries VR’s capabilities in an accessible way, making the event free for everyone to attend with any money raised going to charities Amnesty International and The Big Issue.

Preparation for Lost Horizon is well underway and we have worked furiously all hours of the day to curate, consult and create all visual aspects of the festival just like we would in the real world, even down to the merchandise – yes, you can wear lineup t-shirt in the game!

We’re now launching the full lineup across two days, there is much more to show visually and a full case study will follow but for now visit the new website and make sure you join us come July 3 + 4th 2020.

www.losthorizonfestival.com

What the press have to say

The Guardian
NME
Billboard Magazine