In many discussions about the Metaverse, the focus is on how technology can transport us to a place outside of real life. The narrative is often about immersion and removal, particularly when it comes to VR, and less about combined experiences. Of course, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) provide a segway between full immersion and a combined approach.
However, in many cases, the focus is on how AR and MR technology can benefit users practically. For example, much publicity has been around how AR and MR can support educators, medical professionals, and manufacturers. Yet, AR and MR have taken a back seat for entertainment purposes.
This article will focus on how Metaverse technologies can contribute to life enhancement. Specifically, we’ll look at how using AR and MR can enable companies to provide these enhanced experiences. Ultimately, the aim is to give users more than what is possible.
Life Enchantment: When Fantasy and Reality Combine
We coined a new phrase or a new use case for an existing idea, life enchantment, to describe this approach. As a play on life enhancement, life enchantment describes the way organizations can use AR and MR technologies to interweave virtual experiences impossible in the physical world into real-life situations.
Importantly, life enchantment is less about practicality and more about pleasures. It’s about how Metaverse technologies can support higher engagement and enjoyment in a real-world setting.
Life Enchantment Enhances Music Festivals
One of the most recent and high-profile examples of life enchantment occurred at the 2022 SXSW music festival. During a performance by the band Miro Shot Collective, audience members used head-mounted devices to experience enhanced versions of the live show.
Show-goers were treated to a visual spectacle that included enhanced visuals and warped perspectives. Ristband, an AR and VR live events organization, curated the event.
Life Enchantment Builds on Metaverse Events
In another example, the creators of Giudizio Universale used projection mapping and other AR techniques to transport attendees to the Sistine Chapel. The performance enables viewers to experience live visual, special effects whilst on stage, live performances combine with the virtual elements.
Although the Giudizio Universale show doesn’t rely on ‘traditonal’ Metaverse technologies, it represents the possibilities for MR and AR at Metaverse events. Imagine using projection-mapped visuals that respond to touch. Perhaps, users could interact with the images through their smartphones to learn more about a brand.
Best of Both Worlds
Of course, there is a space for life enchantment in full immersion too. In these circumstances, VR technologies can mirror real-world events and provide options for users to improve or expand on them.
For example, in April 2022, Coachella and Absolut announced a new innovation. The 2022 Coachella Festival would include a VR twin of its Absolut stage, Absolut.Land. In Absolut.Land, visitors can experience a more immersive take on the real-time events taking place in a physical tent at the Coachella festival.
Hosted in Decentraland, the Absolut Coachella experience will enable users to, amongst other things, fly from one dance floor to the next. The event and accompanying technology will ultimately merge the physical and virtual worlds.
Although the notion of life enchantment here is an immersive experience, it differs in other ways, too, from AR or MR. It provides users with a choice to attend in-person or through a virtual Metaverse platform. However, this choice isn’t a booby prize, second best to participate in-person.
Instead, it is an enhancement of the original proposition. It’s providing users with the option to experience the event while also enabling them to experience more immersion and added extras impossible to experience IRL.
Final Thoughts
We predict entertainment organizations will focus more on these AR and MR experiences to provide advanced enjoyment. As the Metaverse expands and evolves, it will become ever more common for practicality to take a back seat. Instead, experiences may be judged on how they contribute to life enchantment instead of life advancement.
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