Perspektiven virtueller Musikfestivals – eine explorative Analyse eines innovativen Veranstaltungsformats

The outbreak of the corona pandemic in 2020 plunged the event industry into crisis. Major events, including music festivals, were canceled due to the pandemic. There were massive financial collapses and the lack of planning for festival organizers resulted in a lack of perspective. Within a very short time, alternative event formats had to be found in order to apply existing festivals to the pandemic conditions. In 2021, this crisis continued again with the associated cancellation of major events. In the wake of this development, the event format of virtual music festivals comes to the fore, where visitors can experience digitally provided content. However, due to the scarcity of virtual music festivals, the opportunities and risks of this format have been little explored. This paper examines the event format of virtual music festivals and attempts to identify its perspectives. For this purpose, the realization of individual virtual music festivals in 2020 is examined based on explorative expert interviews of various festival organizers in Germany. Key findings include the influence of solidarity, which was particularly evident during the pandemic among representatives of the most vulnerable sector, and an attitude of uncertainty with regard to the festivals’ programs. In addition, the results indicate that in virtual music festivals, compared to traditional music festivals, there are some discomforts in terms of interaction with the participants, which lead to the inability to create a comparable experience. However, the results also show some aspects that can identify the virtual music festival as a complementary offer to the physical festival, even after the end of the pandemic.