{"id":338200,"date":"2017-04-13T01:01:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T17:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1476101"},"modified":"2017-04-13T01:01:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T17:01:35","slug":"thewavevr-is-a-mesmerizing-trippy-take-on-the-future-of-music-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/thewavevr-is-a-mesmerizing-trippy-take-on-the-future-of-music-festivals\/","title":{"rendered":"TheWaveVR is a mesmerizing, trippy take on the future of music festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

If the prospect of joining a virtual music festival and dancing around in a VR headset and controllers sounds pretty geeky\u2026 you\u2019re not wrong.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also, like, incredible.<\/p>\n

TheWaveVR<\/a> will remind you of drugs even if you\u2019ve never done drugs and will probably also make you want to do drugs.<\/p>\n

The virtual reality music app is launching an beta version today on Steam early access that brings you into a world of outlandish visuals and heavy electronic music inside a social arena.<\/p>\n

Today, the Austin-based startup\u00a0is also\u00a0announcing that it has closed a $4 million seed round led by Upfront Ventures. Other investors in the round include RRE Ventures, KPCB Edge, Greycroft VR Gaming Tracker Fund and The VR Fund.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever been to a trippy EDM rave\u00a0or have had the privilege of seeing Flying Lotus in concert, you\u2019ll know that the glitchy graphics occurring onscreen behind the artist are often a major contributor to the otherworldly vibes. I probably don\u2019t need to tell you that this can be a lot more powerful in VR when all of a sudden the entire sky is lighting up and shifting inside itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Snapshots really don\u2019t do the app justice, because part of what makes the app such a powerful experience is the ability to enter the space and interact with strangers.<\/p>\n

I was able to jump into an early build of the\u00a0app and hop around with co-founder\/CEO Adam Arrigo and Upfront general partner Kobie Fuller\u00a0to enjoy a \u201cWave\u201d concert and it was almost bizarre how disarmingly intimate\/spiritual the interactions felt. You can chat with each other, dance and give high fives, but more interestingly you can share something called \u201csocial trips\u201d which take you and the other user into a mini-game-like world where it\u2019s just you two\u00a0interacting with a world that\u2019s incredibly wonky.<\/p>\n

In addition to wandering the virtual desert and socializing, you can also dive behind the turntables and craft tracks with a surprisingly finessed\u00a0VR DJ setup, spinning tracks while also doing things that just aren\u2019t possible in the real world thanks to pesky gravity.<\/p>\n

With so many investors skeptical of making investments in VR, it\u2019s crazy to see a VR music app raising money from top firms\u00a0like KPCB and Upfront, but that really speaks to the unique vision of TheWaveVR which manages to get so much right in its first beta release.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The difficult challenge for any social VR app is building up a sustainable community,\u00a0TheWaveVR is planning to do weekly concerts in VR featuring real electronic musicians.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d question the sustainability of that model if I hadn\u2019t already experienced a concert, but the reality is that this app is going to be\u00a0something that every worthwhile DJ \u2014 in LA or elsewhere \u2014 will be\u00a0playing around with soon and I\u2019m sure\u00a0it won\u2019t be long before users have their pick up some top artists inside the app. The team is building tools for artists to import tracks\u00a0that they can play around with onstage.<\/p>\n

TheWaveVR has so many areas it can still visit as it builds up for a full release, but it\u2019s already far more successful at creating a digital music festival than a VR app should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" If the prospect of joining a virtual music festival and dancing around in a VR headset and controllers sounds pretty geeky… you’re not wrong. But it’s also, like, incredible. TheWaveVR will remind you of drugs even if you’ve never done drugs and will probably also make you want to do drugs. The virtual reality music app is launching an beta version today on Steam… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-338200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}