Decentraland’s Metaverse Music Festival Boosts Sales Volume

Key Takeaways

• Musicians and media conglomerates alike are overtly excited to explore the metaverse as an intuitive means of connecting to a growingly decentralized global fanbase.
• Emotes enable avatars to express themselves in ways previously unattainable. The addition of new emotes to Decentraland's Marketplace likely boosts user engagement and retention during activations.
• Wearables sales volume spiked on the kick-off of the Music Festival by 30X compared to the previous day.
• Land sales volume increased by 57% the week of the Music Festival compared to the previous week.

You don’t often get the chance to see top musicians like Björk, Ozzy Osbourne, and Soulja Boy perform - nonetheless, free of charge. Especially without having to leave the comfort of your house, let alone your computer.

Decentraland’s Metaverse Music Festival (MVMF) set out to change that. To create a compelling event that attracted new users and the existing Decentraland community, the gamified user-owned virtual world focused on providing a medium for musicians and fans to interact with each other in new ways.

In addition to the event headliners, Björk and Osbourne, the second annual MVMF virtual line-up included performances from Dillon Francis, Akira the Don, Breland, Atarashii Gakko, Spottie Wifi, Lian Gold, and Erika Krall, to name a few.

In lieu of the current sentiment of the market and the FTX debacle, Decentraland set out to craft an unforgettable virtual experience.

But were Decentraland’s efforts enough to attract new users, appease the existing community, and generate asset sales?

What Happened During Decentraland’s Metaverse Music Festival 2022?

Notable activations

Björk, the Icelandic singer-songwriter, commenced Decentraland's Metaverse Music Festival (MVMF) 2022 with a captivating performance premiering her music video, “Sorrowful Soil.” In her typical eclectic nature and garb, Björk could be seen celebrating an Icelandic volcano - at the actual geographic location - as it becomes active after thousands of dormant years.

Ozzy Osbourne also made a hot entrance appearing as an avatar alongside MOTORHEAD’s Lemmy. Ozzy was “thrilled to be bringing Ozzfest to the metaverse,” as the virtual music festival enabled him to meet and engage with fans in alternative and accessible ways.

Performances aside, NBC's The Voice hosted another activation worth mentioning. The popular competition show stayed true to its roots. It conjured up a game wherein fans would "collect "notes" to the beat of a song in order to get a chair turn" and then be rewarded with a Voice collectible to commemorate the experience.

Are other brands taking notes and positioning themselves to follow suit and enter the metaverse to boost engagement with their decentralized audiences?

Justin Hochberg, CEO of Virtual Brand Group, stated that "creating our first Metaverse experience with Decentraland is the logical next iteration of that global fan journey."

Boosted engagement with in-world assets

Emotes, custom avatar movements and gestures, have taken the virtual world by storm, with the update only being released earlier this month. Decentraland promoted and gained a nice repertoire of emotes on their Marketplace by hosting an MVMF Emote Contest. First place was awarded to the talented Kinetix Studio, an AI-powered, no-code 3D content platform for creators.

As the Parcel Team ventured from event to event, it became quite apparent that emotes play a significant role in audience engagement and retention at activations.

The more immersed an avatar seemed, the more likely they were to start busting a move or to purchase an emote from the DCL Marketplace. Sure, events in the metaverse need to offer complimentary content and a compelling reason to jump into a virtual world like Decentraland. Still, some things will not waiver - and that's the need to dance at a music festival!

Emotes were not the only collections making waves, but user-generated collectibles and wearables were flying off the shelves as well.

As depicted in the chart above, wearables sales volume spiked on the kick-off of the Music Festival by 30X compared to the previous day.

The act of contributing to the community without extracting value is a core ethos held by many actors in Decentraland and was exemplified by the sheer amount of airdropped wearables and deployed collectibles available to claim.

It's fair to assume that a successful Music Festival may compel new users to claim a stake in the virtual world and purchase some land in Decentraland.

Interestingly, land sales volume increased by 57% during the week of MVMF compared to the preceding week. On top of this, the number of new landowners followed suit, doubling the week of November 6 compared to previous weeks.

Are there any other Metaverse Music Festival takeaways you would have included here? Let us know on Twitter @ParcelNFT.

Want to get involved and explore virtual land in Decentraland? Click here to view Parcel's metaverse Marketplace.