Social media platform Snapchat has partnered with live entertainment giant Live Nation to bring augmented reality (AR) to concerts.
Live music fans will be able to open the Snapchat camera at select concerts for AR experiences, bringing artists closer to the audience. Attendees will be able to use AR to try on merchandise, find friends and discover landmarks around festival grounds.
The AR experiences have been created with help from Snap’s AR creative studio, Arcadia.
Events where the service will be available include Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival, Wireless Festival in London and Birmingham in the UK, Rolling Loud in Miami and The Governors Ball in New York. Snap has partnered with 16 Live Nation festivals in total.
The first event to utilise the Snapchat AR experiences is Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas in May.
Ben Schwerin, Snap senior vice-president of content and partnerships told news outlet Variety: “We can leverage this huge user base we have in a way that will make augmented reality the next phase of visual expression for artists.
“This really hasn’t been done before in a way that is part of the artist’s vision and helping it come to life. The intent is not for people to be on their phones the entire time. It’s to have these AR Lenses to strategically enhance moments of the performance.”
Snap is continuing its foray into the live music sector, having also recently announced the addition of its live events discovery feature in partnership with Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster.
Image: Souvik Banerjee on Unsplash