Live Nation to Debut AR Live Stream at Music Midtown Festival

Come September, Live Nation is set to begin streaming live events in augmented reality. The entertainment giant will debut live AR broadcasting at the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, Georgia, where attendees will also be able to unlock filters and other AR effects.

Live Nation announced the new initiative at the Cannes Lions festival Thursday, where it also introduced Hyundai as the sponsor underwriting the experience. Users of Live Nation’s app will be able to explore “a custom 3D version of the 2020 Sonata” in AR, according to a media release.

However, don’t expect these kinds of 3D holograms to extend to the music content. The live stream will simply be presented on a kind of AR jumbotron that users can place on their coffee table.

In other words: The music content will still be a traditional 2D stream, it will just be presented with a few AR bells and whistles around it. Live Nation does promise a dedicated AR VIP mode that it supposed to give fans access to unique camera angles you wouldn’t get to enjoy if watching the festival in person.

Attendees will instead get to use AR face filters and special backgrounds on the festival grounds. Live Nation also plans to use AR to give fans something to do during intermissions, and also turn empty stages into another opportunity to sell sponsorships to brands.

Live Nation isn’t the first company to experiment with AR in the context of a music festival. Earlier this year, Coachella created an immersive stage experience for gigs from artists like Diplo, Jaden Smith, Kid Cudi, Whiz Califa and Gucci Gang.

What remains to be seen is whether fans actually want to use any of these features. Especially AR broadcasts that offer little more than regular live streams seem more designed to appeal to sponsors than to actual end users, who probably could do without a jumbotron in their living room.

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