As the world locked down, videogames allowed it to open up via virtual concerts. We talk to the artists, developers and organisers responsible

By Jordan Oloman

As well as playing Highest In The Room, Travis Scott used Fortnite’s Astronomical event to debut The Scotts, a new song featuring Kid Cudi

We realise we’ve done something wrong when the wooden door won’t open from the outside. To the glitch pop already pumping in our headphones, we add a flurry of hasty rightclicks, to no avail. The set we’ve all queued so long to see is just about to start, but this particular group won’t be making it onto the digital dancefloor.

Looking for a space to cool off and get to know each other, we’ve managed to get trapped on the outskirts of the Nether Meant festival ground. But we aren’t about to quit to desktop and split up this party. Instead, the group – our blocky avatars dressed in virtual merch – huddle to take screencap selfies, the procedural mountains of jutting stone providing a perfect backdrop, and laugh about the situation we’ve found ourselves in. In the world of virtual concerts, it turns out, everything has its digital equivalent. Even the smoking area.

The circumstances of 2020 provided the perfect opportunity for virtual concerts to make their mark. For evidence, you need look no further than Travis Scott’s Fortnite show, which broke records for the game with a crowd peaking at 12.3 million concurrent players. To the team at Open Pit, though, this concept is nothing new – the creative collective has been putting on Minecraft shows since 2018, events with winking names such as ‘Coalchella’ and ‘Fire Festival’.

Last April, just weeks before a gigantic avatar of cloud-rap kingpin Travis Scott brought his Astroworld tour to Fortnite, Open Pit raised over $8,000 for COVID-19 relief by building a replica of a closed Brooklyn music venue. Emo pioneers American Football and chiptune heroes Anamanaguchi played to a crowd of thousands, all within Minecraft servers.

They’re on a smaller scale than the digital arena shows Epic Games is able to arrange over on its island, perhaps, but Open Pit’s events have provided much-needed nights of escape for music lovers itching to feel the thrill of a crowd without the chill of a virus. “The Fortnite-type concerts are a totally different thing because they’re run by the people that make the game and they can’t be done without that,” Open Pit co-founder Umru Rothenberg tells us. “Our promotion comes completely from our community of people that have become fans of our events and the fans of all the artists performing.”

Nevertheless, as its events entered the public eye, Open Pit was able to book experimental-pop royalty such as Charli XCX and 100 Gecs. Its staff made custom Minecraft skins for the artists who signed up for shows – and for those who weren’t familiar with the game, Open Pit staff would step in.

“You’ve got to remember that a lot of the musicians who are doing this don’t really know what Minecraft is,” says multiinstrumentalist and producer Gus Lobban. Having previously attended TinyChat club nights and DJed in Second Life, Lobban is no stranger to this world, but he’s more exception than the rule when it comes to his co-stars. See Charli XCX, who infamously cut through the gloss of her Square Garden set last year to ask the crowd, “What the fuck is Minecraft?”

The Open Pit team often have to play the role of a virtual backstage runner, doing everything from talking artists through the process of downloading the game to teleporting them onstage in time for their sets. Rothenberg, whose responsibilities include A&R, recalls the prep for Nether Meant: “Members of American Football needed to call me and ask, ‘How do I move forward?’” After a little tutelage, most of the band performed on stage as their pixellated personas, while a pre-recorded mix played out via the web-based Mixlr live streaming service. And for the members who couldn’t figure it out? “Some of them also had their kids playing as them.”