News

In a digitalising world, pop venues and festivals face the task of whether and how to adapt to this development. During the pandemic, some venues invested heavily in equipment to livestream performances, and during those years there were even voices that livestreams and holograms could eventually replace traditional live offerings. However, based on the POPLIVE publication ‘I was There!’, that view can be disputed. One of the main conclusions from this study is that physical copresence, being there, is the key element of concert experience, something that can not be perfectly simulated in a digital context. Therefore, the primary focus of venues and festivals in the post-pandemic era should not be at digitising their offerings.

Read the article “The value of being there” that was published in the magazine UNCOVER – The Future of Leisure here.