yea, so a band holds a concert in VR. whats it like?

Is everybody on the front row? are you in a seperate room with your closest friends and the band? is there a sea of people? How does this technicaly work on the crunch side?

is this even something that happens? I imagine it does.

I think it would be like that scene in Lawnmower Man 2, when Jobe (played by Matt Frewer) has thousands of people in VR at his 'concert hall' (for lack of a better term).

The POV of each one would be pretty much front row or within 2-3 rows of it, and when you look around, you see all the others who are attending, spread out like a massive concert hall or stadium. But each person has their own POV (unless slaved/locked into one specific view by the broadcaster).

It is my guess that every event in the matrix would at the very worst be like going to something in.... second life. (*urgh* Pardon me for even daring to mention it, but we need a basis from which to start.) So it only gets better from there- much better, with any hope. If it was me designing these kind of events in the matrix, I would give every concert-goer their choice of seats in the virtual concert hall/amphitheater. Everyone must have their own manner of "reality filter" of sorts, so each attendant or party of attendants would be able to view the concert from their favoured viewpoint, and the crowd (which is there for effect) would be peopled by the other concert-goers (or their avatars, if you will) which are arranged accordingly. Thus, two groups could be sitting in what are essentially the same seats, but it would look to them as if the other group is sitting elsewhere. (So sort of like an instance in an MMORPG.) You can explain away a lot of the fiddly bits of these sorts of things in the style of Red Dwarf- 'we don't need to go into detail in regards to exactly how it works, because that is not important to the story' or something on that order.

Also I imagine that almost all of VR events are going to have unethical emotion tracks spliced into the feed to ensure that the fans get what they want. Not to mention "accidentally" allowing BTL Grade tracks to be broadcast over the 'trix.

Step one. Goto video store/netflix....
Step two. Rent "Macross Plus" (movie is easiest... OAV 1-4 is harder)
Step three. Revel in it.
Step four. now take it to the next level and you have a glimpse of the possibilites of a VR concert ;P.

(fear the VR concert paired w/ a BTL! Brings new meaning to the term "Information High").

Macross Frontier has a hologram-enhanced concert in episode 1. Take that, turn it up to 11 for the weirder bands.

This is an excellent point. Apart from the incredible visuals available in VR (pyrotechnics and lasers are only the tip of the iceberg), bands or promoters are going to be able to design customized emotional tracks that follow the mood set by the music. Imagine the mosh pit at a virtual goblin rock concert with a simsense feed of ANGERAGRESSIONMAYHEMVIOLENCE piped into every attendee's emotional centre.

In fact, now I'm thinking this would be a neat feature to include on any form of music release in the 2070s - go home, slip into coldsim VR and listen to some retro blues or jazz as if you're right there with the performers, picking up the emotion in the music in a very literal sense.

Damn damn double double post post.

In my mind that is one of the most important things to happen in the SR canon. Being able to use Simsense to feel anything has the potential to be extremely powerful in a multitude of ways, ranging from Emo Bands depressing everyone to the Corps chipping the Slaves with anti-Boredom simsense. A person could work 16 hours a day in complete euphoria with a fair bit of ease.

Also quite dangerous. Think of what the Deathcore type people already get up to these days. I would not put it past some of the more hardcore types to wrap Snuff Simsense into the recording.

A minor point. While everyone can have front row seats without problems, the cost difference probably comes from whether the stars on stage can see you.

You know, maybe they would shake hand with you or single out someone special.

Then again, I suppose it's possible that the star shaking hand would actually be copied and edited so that he shakes with all the fans who reached out for him.

Deathklok....but real(seeming)