Egg on Zuck's Face: Facebook's Metaverse Concerts All Flopped

Lucas NolanJanuary 5, 2022

Facebook (now known as Meta) recently announced a number of virtual reality concerts set to take place in its Horizon Venues metaverse — but all three shows were largely ignored by the general public.

Futurism reports that Facebook recently announced a number of virtual reality concerts to be held in its Horizon Venues metaverse last month. The lineup included rapper Young Thug, DJ David Guetta, and the EDM duo The Chiansmokers.

In this Sept. 14, 2017 file photo Young Thug attends the 3rd Annual Diamond Ball in New York. Police say the rapper was arrested in Los Angeles after officers found a concealed firearm inside his car. Officer Drake Madison says Friday, Aug. 17, 2018, the rapper, whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, was booked on a weapons possession charge. He was being held on $35,000 bail.

In this Sept. 14, 2017 file photo Young Thug attends the 3rd Annual Diamond Ball in New York. ((Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives for the 8th annual Breakthrough Prize awards ceremony at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California on November 3, 2019. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

However, practically no one appeared to be aware the concerts were taking place or turned up to watch them. There was almost no mention of the events on Twitter or Facebook and the concerts received little to no news coverage.

The concerts were also not exactly “virtual reality optimized.” Although they took place in the metaverse, Guetta’s performance was simply a 2D livestreamed video of his previous performance at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Young Thug and The Chainsmokers offered a 180-degree view of their concert, but in comparison to an event like Travis Scott’s appearance in the popular video game Fortnite, the experience was underwhelming.

Young Thug’s performance generated just over 100,000 views while Guetta’s performance received almost a million. It appears that The Chainsmoker’s performance has been removed, it is currently unclear why. It should also be noted that Facebook has a tendency to be quite optimistic about what constitutes a “view” on a video and the number of people that watch them.

It seems like not a lot of people don’t want to spend the holiday season strapped into a VR headset watching a 2D video of a DJ performing at another event. Surprising. Facebook will likely attempt another set of concerts in a similar fashion, whether they’ll be better optimized or more successful remains to be seen.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address [email protected]