Indie dance label Monstercat is no stranger to digital experimentation. It was early in testing the water with its licensing for digital video and gaming platforms through the creation of a $5-per month subscription that licensed its music for use on Twitch, YouTube and Mixer. It also licensed 40 exclusive tracks for Rocket League’s in-game catalogue last year.

Its latest initiative is in partnership with Linden Lab (the company that was behind Second Life) and there is a return to the virtual with this new tie up. It is based around Sansar, a social-VR platform, that launched in public beta back in 2017 and which describes itself as “the world’s leading social virtual reality platform”.

Monstercat: Call Of The Wild Experience is being planned as a weekly event within Sansar. The first one will take place on 12th July to mark Monstercat’s eighth birthday where over a dozen acts will perform. Thereafter there will be a range of events – “from concerts to meet and greets to exclusive fan quests and giveaways”.

“We’re giving fans all over the world the chance to connect in a shared experience with other fans and the artists they love; but more than that, we’re using gaming to elevate the concert experience – questing, raffles, special in-game prizes, across both VR and PC,” said Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg in a statement.

It is an interesting new offering and one that clearly understands how the label’s fans want to engage with it and its artists in new ways. It is still, of course, brand new – but it will be intriguing to watch how these weekly events unfold and how they can (potentially) create new forms of fan engagement and fan loyalty as well as new forms of monetisation.