AN IMMERSIVE TECH DAY WITH SONY MUSIC

Sony Music Immersive Tech Day 2024 at Sony Studios in Culver City during Grammy week offered a rare opportunity to peek behind the (virtual) scenes. How we got in there we'll never know.

First, we got a gander at Sony’s LED production stage developed using Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Not unlike the type of immersive stage used in filming Disney’s The Mandalorian, the LED stage allows the building of 3D environments using real-time effects to produce new content offerings and branded activations for Sony artists, such as the Journey Through Jericho Fortnite Island based on the music video for the song “Jericho” by Columbia artist Iniko.

Immersive Tech Day also showcased AVNU: Where Music Meets—a social media destination for Roblox centered around music-related game play, challenges and "virtual goods collecting" underscored by songs from Sony Music talent and Nitewave—a music-themed island within Fortnite where players compete to “capture the flag” and control the island’s soundtrack, which consists exclusively of songs by Sony Music artists.

“One of our key missions is to expand the creative and commercial opportunities for our artists,” said Sony Music President, Global Digital Business Dennis Kooker (pictured). “The reality is, microtransactions and virtual goods in and around these experiences, are what drive it, and that’s why we very deliberately launched our Roblox experience with a virtual merch strategy around it.”

Fortunately, nobody asked us to leave, even after we "leveled up" to the snacks table.

You can play Journey Through Jericho by clicking here. To check out Nitewave click here. To peep AVNU: Where Music Meets click here.