Music and dancing are essential to the way many of us relate with one another: you might feel a connection with others sharing the same taste in music, or might feel a closer bond with others when participating in a song and dance. And with technology permeating all aspects of culture and fundamentally changing the way we socialize, what might a tech-infused musical performance of tomorrow look like?

To answer this question, we take a close look at two different musical experiences—a marquee concert event and an AR experience that may be enjoyed anywhere—that each offer value not just for fans, but also artists and brands hoping to make a mark on culture through tech-driven creative experiences. The secret to both their successes is how they uniquely inspire connection between fans and how they engage with the experience at hand, offering a handful of best practices when leveraging emerging tech.

Translating Familiar Activations into Forward-Thinking Tech

MediaMonks recently sought to modernize the concert-going experience at Super Saturday Night—a major night of musical programming on the eve of the Super Bowl—which featured Lady Gaga this year.  “It followed a specific ask from AT&T: how do we modernize the traditional concert-going experience and make this truly tech-forward?” says Shamlin. The team took inspiration by reinventing the types of activations you would typically find at concerts and events, giving them a Lady Gaga facelift and bringing them into a more future-forward form.

Take the Monster Wall for example. This play on the “step and repeat” media wall, commonly found at so many award shows and other big-name events, encourages attendees to strut, stop and snap a photo. The wall animates unique, neon-lit “little monsters” (referencing Lady Gaga’s name for her fans) that mimic attendees’ movements with no latency, demonstrating the strength of AT&T’s 5G network.

This type of smart, relevant demonstration of product offering is critical to apply to integrated marketing delivery across the board, whether through live experiential events or with a digital banner ad. “Empowered customers and prospects hiding from advertising and marketing put pressure on CMOs to create stickier media executions and experiences,” writes Forrester Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall in The Forrester Wave™: Full-Service Media Agencies, Q1 2019 report. “This new challenge means media campaigns and the agency partners that deliver them must forgo conventional reach and frequency in favor of more personalized, culturally relevant and technology-savvy execution.”

A similar idea takes effect with our upgrade of the signature wall—essentially, a blank wall or canvas that anyone can sign, share a message or doodle on. But what if the signature wall didn’t have to be limited to a flat surface, and could extend into the space all around us?  “Drawing on Kindness” is an AR experience that answers this question by letting attendees use phones as if they were brushes capable of painting the three-dimensional space around them, inviting them to really leave a mark on the environment.

Differentiating Through Desire for Connection

The above activations play on the concert’s theme of bringing people together through kindness, a theme shared by the artist herself. All digitally infused performances and events must likewise be intentional with how they use technology—a lack of purpose runs the risk of reducing artistry into novelty.

People attend concerts for a sense of connection with the artist, sharing the same space with them and other fans. When Childish Gambino sought to bring a performance anywhere—even your living room—with augmented reality, this desire to connect was key in our development of the Pharos AR app, made in collaboration between MediaMonks, Google, Unity and Wolf + Rothstein. The app initially soft launched at Coachella in 2019.

In addition to treating users to an intimate performance of an exclusive track, the app serves as a direct channel between the artist and his fans, offering an exciting way to release new songs and virtual performances right into fans’ homes. “It serves as another outlet for Childish Gambino’s creativity, letting him update his fans with future song releases over the cloud,” said MediaMonks Sr. Producer Thomas Prevot, who worked on the project.

Activations Still Thrive on Simplicity

Despite the bells and whistles of cool, futuristic activations detailed above, there’s still a lot of value for simplicity. Ask Shamlin about one of the most popular attractions at Super Saturday Night, and he’ll introduce you to the Monster Paw, a giant claw-shaped sculpture based on Lady Gaga’s iconic hand pose. Attendees could stand in front of the claw to capture a dynamic, 180-degree gif of themselves in front of it.

“It’s the least tech-forward attraction we placed there, but it’s turned out really cool given the materials, dramatic lighting and fog,” says Shamlin, who notes that its simplicity and obvious value as a social takeway have elevated the Monster Paw to being a hero moment for fans at the show. It serves as a good example of how the design of any good experience must begin with offering a clear value. “How do you capture attention and get people to pause?” asks Shamlin. “The balance of technology often has a learning curve. You have to teach how, why and when to make an interaction.”

Shamlin’s point hearkens back to the truth that any use of emerging tech must offer a key, easy-to-grasp value to users in order to be received successfully. With intentional design, strategic onboarding and cultural relevance working in concert with one another, experiential activations in many forms can modernize the typical music-going experience to dramatic effect.