June 8, 2020 – The team behind Glastonbury Festival’s Shangri-La experience, in partnership with Sansar and VR Jam, has today announced Lost Horizon (July 3 & 4): a music and arts festival in virtual reality, featuring a lineup of world-famous DJs, underground acts and visual artists, and raising money for The Big Issue and Amnesty International. The virtual festival will last two days, and will include fifty-plus performances across four stages.
Created with Sansar, Wookey Project Corporation’s photorealistic platform for virtual live events, Lost Horizon opens up a new realm of possibilities for artists and fans – filled with dancefloors, secret headliners, hidden venues and a visual feast of art and performance. Replicating real-life attractions from Shangri-La, including the Gas Tower, Freedom and SHITV stages, Sansar will premiere its mobile platform with multiple camera angles from each stage, allowing viewers to switch between performances.
For Sansar, the collaboration showcases the large scale and monetization that its live events platform supports. With functionalities for in-world commerce (including ticketing, tipping and merchandising), broadcasting, and a photorealistic game engine, Sansar offers talent, labels and management an alternate revenue stream at a time when the events industry is at a standstill due to social distancing measures.
“Now more than ever, fans are looking beyond traditional live shows to connect with the artists they love. They’re online, they’re savvy about streaming, they’re eager to experience music unconstrained by where they live, and there’s a clear demand for events that transcend old boundaries,” said Sheri Bryant, President of Sansar. “With Lost Horizon, we’re delivering the music festival of the future: deeply immersive, fully online, accessible to anyone and anywhere with a PC or phone at their disposal. We’re at the vanguard of something truly incredible, and we couldn’t be more excited to turn this page.”
Kaye Dunnings, Creative Director at Shangri-La and Lost Horizon, commented: “Our mission is to pioneer new ways of sharing culture and creating a global community that we feel defines us and our ethos”. She added, “We need unity more than ever right now, in an industry that is falling away in front of us. By creating a digital platform to experience art and music in a new way, we are at the forefront of defining the next generation of live entertainment and creative communities as we know them.”
Tickets are now on sale at sansar.com/losthorizon. The global lineup will include performances from Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler and more at the Gas Tower, with additional acts (including Coldcut, A.Skillz, Krafty Kutz, Henge, Alabama 3 and My Baby) appearing on the Freedom Stage. A new stage, Nomad, will celebrate the rich history of underground UK culture and feature artists from drum-and-bass labels like Hospitality, Critical Records, Born on Road, Run Tings Records and more. Full line-up information can be found here.
The event will be streamed live via Beatport and other streaming partners on July 3 & 4, 2020.
Video credit: Shangri-La Glastonbury / YouTube
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.