Concerts in video games are more dynamic and immersive than 2D live streams of artists singing to front-facing iPhone cameras - Pitchfork argues in favor of video-game concerts, so they talked to Minecraft festival organizers for some advice. Open Pit is a volunteer-run collective of event organizers who’ve been making virtual festivals in Minecraft since 2018 - Coalchella, Fire Festival, Mine Gala, and Nether Meant. So, why Minecraft - "[it's] is super open—you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. It’s also the best-selling game of all time, so most people either have it or know someone who has it". On the software side - "there’s a lot of custom software that has to be written for the events we throw, but it’s not super difficult to just run your own Minecraft server with some friends". On Fortnite, an event like Travis Scott’s Astronomical has to be run by the developer of Fortnite - "whereas in Minecraft, there’s a lot of flexibility for the community to organize things".

Classic emo band, now an adult-emo band American Football headlined a lengthy concert on April 11th, online across Minecraft becoming "a place to gather", The Verge journalist who was there reports. "I was surprised at how emotional the show made me, and it was the same for more than 10,000 people watching. Maybe it was because we were all experiencing this moment together, the first big communal event I’ve been to since self-quarantining about a month ago". The band reports they had raised $8,000 for charity. As it turns out, there's a technology that needs to be developed in order to make this kind of shows become bigger and work without glitches, something former Amazon Studios strategist and analyst Matthew Ball wrote about - “the technology simply does not yet exist for there to be hundreds, let alone millions of people participating in a shared, synchronous experience”.

Adult-emo come-backers American Football are headlining a virtual festival Nether Meant in video-game Minecraft on Saturday, April 11 (at 6 p.m. New York time, midnight Berlin time, 7 a.m. on Sunday Tokyo time). The fest takes place in a fictional space called Elsewither, which is based on the Brooklyn venue Elsewhere, NME reports. American Football are joined by Anamanaguchi, Baths, and HANA. AM's Mike Kinsella said “I’m looking forward to (finally) being able to prove to my 7-year-old son that I do, indeed, have a job”. People can watch within the game, or on Twitch. They’re also selling VIP passes to the concert, which offers “special VIP areas in-game” and in-game merch. Proceeds from the VIP passes will go to Good360’s COVID–19 relief efforts.