To bring the fan what the experience of a live concert is... but with the privilege of being part of it on the stage itself. This could be one of the legs of the visual and sound station that can be accessed thanks to the initiative of the Mobile World Capital Barcelona together with the Barcelona Music Lab Foundation and which has materialized thanks to numerous accomplices. And another very remarkable leg is that satisfaction is practically guaranteed beyond preferences and musical tastes.
What's the deal? You put on some bulky, well-fitting glasses and you enjoy a fragment of the last song that the Izal group performed in their last concert at the Palau Sant Jordi before disbanding as a band. It was on October 8 as part of the Cruïlla de Tardor cycle, and the piece in particular is 4.20 minutes of his song-hymn La mujer de verde, where Mikel Izal and his crew throw the rest together with a dedicated audience.
The essential thing is that it is an immersive experience where one can see and hear the musicians, the audience's reaction from a very short distance; if you move the angle of vision, also what security or maintenance managers do. Unleashed decibel sound, smoke, spotlights, and you, as if you were one of the band. But there is more...
It is the promoter Jordi Herreruela, as a member of the Barcelona Music Lab, who explains the context and characteristics of this highly recommended immersion. “We have worked with those responsible for MWCapital to consolidate an umbrella project that brings together all the ideas and experiences of innovation and sustainability within the music industry. We were very interested in generating a transformative proposal and we started from a completely disruptive and innovative listening experience. From here, we went further and achieved a complete sensory experience close to the five senses. And so we involved more people, including the Cruïlla festival, of which I am the director, but whose role in this project has been minimal: putting on the concert”.
In those four minutes or so, the lucky one sees and hears through the aforementioned glasses, but also listens in a space where there is confetti on the floor, as occurs at one point in the song. While this is being seen, the sense of smell perceives a touch of barley in the environment, while, depending on how the head is turned –not the body–, a jet of fresh air is received. The only thing missing is the taste, which is still activated if during the viewing one drinks, for example, a beer...
Herreruela, a piece that one intuits is key in this sensory chapter, explains that "we are not aware that there is a similar experience of technology and music." The only thing they have taken as a reference is the previous joint initiative that was already fully innovative: the 5G viewing of the concert that the Black Eyed Peas did at Cruïlla in 2019. “What we wanted to demonstrate there is that you could connect two distant points with a very high quality of video and sound in real time. At present, the emphasis on innovation is turning flat, one-dimensional immersive experiences into multi-immersive ones”.
But there is still more. MWCapital and the Barcelona Music Lab Foundation are working on new projects beyond classic entertainment. "In the coming months we will work to bring culture to new audiences and sectors," says Eduard Martin, director of intelligent connectivity at MWCapital. And he adds that “the really transformative experiences go through the sum of agents from different specialties; that is why the mix of music and technology is so impressive”.
