Tech

AlunaGeorge headline the first ever concert in Minecraft

by Jeremy Mersereau

Good news for those trapped in a virtual world of their own making, Tron-style who thought they might never again get to enjoy live music: British electronic duo AlunaGeorge are headlining the first-ever concert taking place entirely in the blocky digital realm of Minecraft.

While the duo are performing on Wednesday, March 23rd in good old-fashioned meatspace at the Hamar Olympic Hall in Norway, their digital avatars will simultaneously be animated inside the hyper-popular sandbox game, with their onstage movements mimicked in real-time by a team of enormous nerds volunteers.

“What did you do last night, Terje?” “Oh, you know, kept it low-key, volunteer animating a British pop group in a virtual sandbox game for absolutely no compensation. I felt this was a valuable use of my free time.” “Terje, are you føkka?”

The simulcast event is taking place as part of The Gathering tech festival, and will also feature performances from Norwegian electronic band Lemaitre and DJ team Broiler. Savvy fans and Minecraft denizens have created virtual in-game flyers, and even a trailer showing blocky characters literally running off a digital cliff in their haste to attend the virtual gig.

Just like real-world performances, space for attendees will still be limited, but this time not by physical venue capacity but by server size: the show should have space for about 2,000-3,000 concertgoers, according to Gathering organizer Erik Heisholt.

The Minecraft concert is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Central European time, or 4 p.m. ET. Get in the game now, lest you miss out on seeing an avatar of Aluna Francis composed entirely out of virtual MegaBloks. Just don’t get sucked into your screen and get trapped in the game world forever, as awesome as that might be at first.

[h/t Rolling Stone]