Virtual events are the way of the future – and we’re not talking about stale Zoom webinars and static live-streams.

No, the next phase of digital events will involve wholly digital avatars in wholly digital environments, which is where we’re headed with the metaverse and interacting in entirely new ways.

Which is why’s Snapchat’s new project is particularly interesting – as explained by Snap:

“As part of promotion for the upcoming Valentine’s Day rom-com Marry Me, Snap and Universal Pictures are hosting a first-of-its-kind virtual concert event developed by Oz and featuring new music from the upcoming romantic comedy.”

The virtual event, accessible at this site, will enable fans to log in via Snapchat, with their Bitmoji character then added to the crowd, providing a whole new interactive experience tied back to your Snap presence.

Each Bitmoji avatar character will be able to:

• Start the wave amongst a crowd of hundreds of other Bitmoji attendees
• Release virtual doves into the arena when J-LO performs a love song
• Trigger a series of lasers to sweep the stage and crowd for dramatic effect
• And take advantage of many other interactive options – to perfect your virtual dance moves, blow bubbles, spawn hearts in the arena, and more. 

The concert, which will feature new songs from the Marry Me soundtrack, is a first of its kind initiative for Snap, which could open up new promotional opportunities, while also helping Snap learn more about the coming metaverse shift, and how it can best align with the strengths of the format to better integrate its platform and products.

Virtual concerts provide an interesting perspective on the potential of the next stage of digital connection, with online game networks Fortnite and Roblox both hosting their own virtual concert events over the past few years.

Some of Fortnite’s projects have seen massive engagement, with its Travis Scott ‘Astronmical’ event in 2020 drawing 27.7 million in-game viewers, and its Ariana Grande ‘Rift Tour’ last year attended by 78 million gamers.

This audience, predominantly younger users, represents the next phase of digital connection, and the fact that events like this are already part of how they engage and interact is a significant consideration in the coming metaverse shift.

Because while attending a concert like this might seem strange now, for a growing amount of people, it’s already normal, and already as engaging as it would be heading to a physical event. While as the above example shows, the complexity of these digital shows can be as broad and extravagant as your imagination can come up with, which will see them become even more engrossing and popular over time.

It’ll be interesting to see what sort of response Snap sees to its first foray into Bitmoji concerts, and how that then guides its thinking on building metaverse-aligned experiences.

You can check out Snapchat’s ‘Marry Me’ virtual concert for yourself here.