Touring can be a great way to make money and get exposure, but is:

A. physically exhausting;
B. can often expose both the venue and musician to risk.

I think point (A) is understood easily enough, (B) is simply the artist failing to show up, or the reverse side of the medal, getting screwed last minute after spending their savings on tour. I’d also like to say as a lifelong festival goer, my goal is not to simulate them out of existence, I don’t think I could even if I tried, but to create a platform which is compliant with our current capitalist system and leads to a sustainable market for musicians. Let me explain.

A live human presence, whether in virtual or real space, is scarce. Gatekeeping mp3 files for a monthly fee is not, which is why the value per stream for Spotify and their ilk has been a chart that goes down and to the right (Selling information that is inherently free will ultimately drive its value to zero), since their inception. Real tours fulfill capitalism’s scarcity conditional, but are expensive. The reason that I think DigitRaver’s virtual tours will as well is because it too, fulfills those conditions, but also that of the internet:

1. Low barrier to entry.
A. Mobile first. This is not VR skepticism, this is due to working in VR for the past decade. If it can be done easier, it should be. People don’t spend their working day in VR, but they do listen to LoFi girl for hours.
B. Free to play. Take advantage of new economic models: skins and virtual goods.
2. Massive. Our rooms are 5x the size of any of the open worlds Massive 250+ user rooms today and instanced to theoretical infinite capacity.

So I’m not here to replace your tour. I’m here to create a more accessible one so more people can see you.