Performance or Playground?: Virtual Concerts as Themed Experiences and Transmedial Autofiction
Location
Moore Auditorium
Start Date
20-6-2026 4:00 PM
Description
Virtual concerts are increasingly popular online phenomena (Moritzen 2022). Unlike the “quarantine concerts” of the COVID-19 pandemic (Palmer 2022), these events typically entail computer-generated simulations of performances by well-known artists, usually accessible via free updates for videogames, e.g. K-pop royalty BTS’s Minecraft concert (2021), or Norwegian singer Aurora’s appearance in Sky (2022). Consistent with existing models for synergistic marketing in music/media (Smith 1994), these experiences offer valuable cross-promotion opportunities for both the featured artists and the videogames in which they appear. Certain examples have proven especially innovative: one recent event featuring dance duo Daft Punk’s “android” alter-egos seemed highly attuned to the idiom’s potential, boasting an elaborate interactive extension of the group’s long-running transmedial autofiction and neatly exemplifying the virtual concert’s status as a form of digital themed experience. This paper comprises an in-depth analysis of Daft Punk’s virtual concert (2025): a collaboration between Epic Games, Daft Life Ltd., and Daft Punk’s longstanding creative director Cédric Hervet. First, I explore the seemingly special conduciveness of electro/EDM performance culture to this form of virtual themed experience, using the Daft Punk event as evidence of the idiom’s close consonance with live EDM’s sensory maximalism and embodied kinaesthetic qualities (Garcia 2020; Gilley 2024). Thereafter, I assess the experience’s innovative situation of its participants amid Daft Punk’s playful transmedial autofiction, carefully sculpted during the duo’s decades-long collaboration with Hervet (1992–2021). Ultimately, through close analysis of its central attraction—a forty-minute navigable recreation of Daft Punk’s much-mythologised 2006–07 concerts—I frame this event as compelling evidence of recent trends in interactive/immersive technologies, which continue to spark new and unexpected interactions between popular music and media.
Recommended Citation
Mc Glynn, James Denis, "Performance or Playground?: Virtual Concerts as Themed Experiences and Transmedial Autofiction" (2026). Theme Park Music and Sound. 6.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/tpms/2026/saturday/6
Performance or Playground?: Virtual Concerts as Themed Experiences and Transmedial Autofiction
Moore Auditorium
Virtual concerts are increasingly popular online phenomena (Moritzen 2022). Unlike the “quarantine concerts” of the COVID-19 pandemic (Palmer 2022), these events typically entail computer-generated simulations of performances by well-known artists, usually accessible via free updates for videogames, e.g. K-pop royalty BTS’s Minecraft concert (2021), or Norwegian singer Aurora’s appearance in Sky (2022). Consistent with existing models for synergistic marketing in music/media (Smith 1994), these experiences offer valuable cross-promotion opportunities for both the featured artists and the videogames in which they appear. Certain examples have proven especially innovative: one recent event featuring dance duo Daft Punk’s “android” alter-egos seemed highly attuned to the idiom’s potential, boasting an elaborate interactive extension of the group’s long-running transmedial autofiction and neatly exemplifying the virtual concert’s status as a form of digital themed experience. This paper comprises an in-depth analysis of Daft Punk’s virtual concert (2025): a collaboration between Epic Games, Daft Life Ltd., and Daft Punk’s longstanding creative director Cédric Hervet. First, I explore the seemingly special conduciveness of electro/EDM performance culture to this form of virtual themed experience, using the Daft Punk event as evidence of the idiom’s close consonance with live EDM’s sensory maximalism and embodied kinaesthetic qualities (Garcia 2020; Gilley 2024). Thereafter, I assess the experience’s innovative situation of its participants amid Daft Punk’s playful transmedial autofiction, carefully sculpted during the duo’s decades-long collaboration with Hervet (1992–2021). Ultimately, through close analysis of its central attraction—a forty-minute navigable recreation of Daft Punk’s much-mythologised 2006–07 concerts—I frame this event as compelling evidence of recent trends in interactive/immersive technologies, which continue to spark new and unexpected interactions between popular music and media.