Can You See The Future Yet?

Rain sparkled and shimmered brilliantly like glitter as it reflected off the breathtaking display of LED lights and drenched the relentless crowd of 25,000 in Soldier Field one spectacular summer night in Chicago in the year 2013. As if it were planned by some higher power, the music began to swell in intensity and the rain began to pour increasingly harder, causing a pseudo-riot and sensory overload on the lakeshore; a culmination to a near perfect day at the electronic dance themed Spring Awakening Music Festival. All in attendance stood captivated by what they were seeing, hearing, and experiencing. The rain had not dampened the set by any means, in fact it was accepted. The crowd went absolutely wild when Subsonic mastermind “Bassnectar” took to the stage. The entire sky was illuminated vibrantly, the entire color spectrum visible across the horizon. Light was refracting and reflecting in ways only previously seen in Physics textbooks. It was an unbelievably powerful hour of live music; the perfect combination of people, hard-hitting electronic music, and stunning Technicolor displays of Synchronized lights and visualizers. The sold out crowd now had an experience to remember for the rest of their lifetimes, one they only hope can be paralleled in the future.

 Luckily, not only is this euphoric experience bound to repeat its self in some form, it in fact is likely that this immersive sensory experience will become the norm across all performers and genres of music. Not only do concertgoers revel in the chance to be succumbed to the sheer power of the modern stage production, but artist also have become well aware that executing, perfecting, and even further innovating these experiences are they key to their financial success in today’s Music Industry. Since the beginning of the Recording Industry, and only until very recently, Artists always relied on the selling and distributing of their original work to consumers for a reliable source of income and to achieve a status considered successful. However, as Technology inevitably evolved, it pulled the Music Industry along with it. Not long after the invention of Digital Audio, mediums like MP3 and platforms such as file sharing websites took hold of the internet, allowing consumers to find ‘alternate’ ways of obtaining new and old music. This caused the mighty record labels to loose ground and resulted in the drastic fall of album sales. Though where some capacities of the Music Industry faltered, other aspects capitalized off of innovative advancements and adapted to the changing ways to re-establish their success and claim hold of a beyond sufficient source of income. The Live Performance, which is in fact the oldest and most fundamental format of experiencing sound, has undergone astonishing transformations, and elevated it’s capabilities to captivate not just one’s sense of hearing, rather through new multi-medias the entire sensory palate is reachable via the performing Artist. In a mutually beneficial relationship, the task of Artist is now to continue innovating using the technological tools at their disposal in order to attain the consumers attention, support, and of course business. The continuing rise of Digital Audio, the Internet, and Media Distribution Technologies has revolutionized and shifted the focus of the Music Industry towards live performances, where artists are utilizing new technologies in effort to create the ultimate sensory-immersive experience to attract concertgoers and ultimately obtain their primary source of revenue.