What the heck is Splendour XR?

Splendour XR is billed as a “world first extended reality edition” of your fave Aussie festival. It’s launching this July with over 50 homegrown and overseas acts performing inside a true-to-life digital recreation of Splendour’s North Byron Parklands site.

“It makes you feel like you’re actually there,” says Jess Ducrou, Splendour co-founder and head of Aussie live music force Secret Sounds.

“You’ll recognise the tree that you normally meet your friends at.”

The Splendour Amphithteare, Mix Up stage, the G.W. McLennan tent – it’s all there, and recreated in true-to-life digital detail. “It’s actually quite overwhelming,” Jess tells triple j.

Wild. Who’s on the line-up?

The same calibre of artists you’d expect from an IRL Splendour, including international festival-toppers like Khalid, Charli XCX, The Killers, Chvrches, Denzel Curry, and Duke Dumont.

You’ve also got Aussie heavy-hitters Tash Sultana, Vance Joy, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Vera Blue, Spacey Jane, The Jungle Giants, Ocean Alley, Masked Wolf, Violent Soho, What So Not, The Chats, King Stingray, and heaps more.

Plus, there’s the debut of a new project from Grimes, called the Grimes Metaverse (Super Beta), described as: “The voices in Grimes’ head (the art angels from whom all of her creative visions are bestowed) – have formed an AI Girl Group. As technology improves so will they, but Beta version will now be testing in public!”

Here’s the full two day line-up:

DAY 1:

Khalid. Chvrches. Denzel Curry. Duke Dumont. Tash Sultana. Masked Wolf. Russ Millions. Band of Horses. Little Simz. Violent Soho. AURORA. Phoebe Bridgers. Vera Blue. Pink Sweat$. Client Liaison. Griff. Pond. Tayla Parx. Dune Rats. Methyl Ethel. The Chats. Triple One. Cat & Calmell. King Stingray. The Southern River Band.

DAY 2:

The Killers. Charli XCX. Vance Joy. Grimes Metaverse (Super Beta). The Avalanches. Of Monsters And Men. KAYTRANADA. Black Pumas. Hot Dub Time Machine. Millennium Parade. The Jungle Giants. Ocean Alley. Jungle. What So Not. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Sinead Harnett. Holly Humberstone. Spacey Jane. Crooked Colours. Amyl and the Sniffers. Wafia. Aviva. The Snuts. Band-Maid. Ziggy Ramo. Gretta Ray.

Ok, how does it work?

Once you’ve got your Single Day or Weekend ticket, you can access Splendour XR on mobile, tablet, browser, desktop, or if you want to get the full immersion, VR device.

You then create an avatar and wander through the digital Splendour.

Not into character creation? Jess says there’ll be “70 different cameras to choose from” to still view all the sets, which have all been created exclusively for Splendour XR.

“It's very much a product of COVID. We wouldn’t have done this had we not been in a pandemic.”

Don't expect your standard livestream or Zoom party, artists were allowed to go crazy when it came to how they recorded their set.

"What I wanted was as much diversity as possible," Jess explains. "Sitting there and watching act after act in the same format could be pretty boring. So, we’ve made a bunch of suggestions – it could be green screen (which means they’ll actually appear on the stage in 3D) through to them completely producing their own set; record in a rehearsal studio, in a venue, bedroom, back of a truck."

"I think the idea is actually allowing the artist to represent themselves in the way they want to, and they have more options than playing in a live space. Apart from the fantastic artists we have play, there’s so much other content you can check out."

XR yoga - is that a thing?

Glad you asked. Yep, that'll happen at the Global Village, and like we said, every part of Splendour is in the digi-space. You've got panels and discussions at the Splendour Forum, arts around the grounds, arts and crafts at Little Splendour...

There'll also be fundraising opportunities for live music industry workers and sustainability efforts, and if COVID has really cooked your noodle? The online medical centre will focus on mental health.

When’s it all happening?

It's all going down on Saturday 24 & Sunday 25 July (Splendour's usual winter slot), and will run globally from 2pm to 2am AEST.

The idea being, you can connect with your overseas mates and hit the virtual festival together, or sort a COVID-safe house party and log on together.

Jess says the idea behind it was "rather than having a huge crowd in one place, trying to break it down to loads of micro-gatherings, or even on your own, in the comfort of your home."

"We’re certainly looking at this as a global event, which we haven’t been able to do, and it means we can get ticket prices down low, so it's more accessible."

There's Single Day or Weekend passes offered in multiple release windows - Splendour 2021 ticketholders get first dibs at the cheapest price from 2 June through to a final release from 22 July.

All video content will also be available to purchase as on-demand streams for seven days after Splendour XR wraps, but the gates on the virtual festival site will shut after the weekend wraps.

More info available here at | SplendourXR.com