With touring and festivals cancelled from March 2020 onwards, livestreaming went from curio to ubiquity in a matter of weeks. Pretty much everyone piled in and there were some phenomenal creative and commercial triumphs here (notably for BTS and Dua Lipa) as well as whole new platforms (like Dice TV and Driift) helping to ensure quality was not compromised as acts had to learn a whole new way to perform.

The challenge, of course, was how to avoid streaming fatigue (as many people’s social lives and their working lives had to adapt to “the new streaming normal”); but also to create a livestream proposition that was different from the thousands of other live streams happening that week. Within this, VR and AR was not used as much as it could have been. Part of that was down to production costs and lead times, but it was also limited by the fact that VR and AR headsets are still not that commonplace.

To address the headset shortage, Gary Barlow is partnering with MR (mixed reality) company PhotonLens to offer 35 fans the chance to win VR headsets that come pre-loaded with 360-degree performances of two songs (‘Incredible’ and ‘This Is My Time’) from his latest album, Music Played By Humans. The sharp contrast between the album title and how fans will watch the performance is, we must presume, knowingly intentional. 

It is part of the Be-Spoke Sessions set up by PhotonLens. Fans entering give their name and country but also have to click on what their interests are from a list including gaming, music, science & technology, sports and gadgets, suggesting some segmented marketing to come from PhotonLens.

The company also says that headsets were sent to “certain influencers”. This is very clearly a play to push AR and VR headsets to a slightly older and more mainstream audience – with Barlow as the marketing catalyst – who might be encountering the technology and how it can be used for musical performances for the first time.