Category: Sansar

Sansar: the Wookey in ex-CEO lawsuit

Posted on by Inara Pey
Stock image via MGN

Sansar, the platform for live virtual events originally created by Linden Lab, had something of a scare in later December 2021, when all services, including the platform’s website went off-line for a period of time. This prompted a round of speculation / rumour (and in some cases, indignation) that the platform had been shut down without warning.

As we all know, Sansar went through an intensive development cycle from 2014 through 2017, prior to being (prematurely, I tend to believe) launched on the world at large. It then – being brutally honest – went through a period in which Linden Lab flip-flopped in direction and purpose for Sansar as the bubble of hype surrounding consumer-based VR (unsurprisingly) burst. Finally, in March 2020, after having laid-off the majority of staff involved in Sansar at the end of 2019, Linden Lab sold Sansar to what appeared to be a start-up company, then called Wookey Projects (eventually to be come Wookey Search Technologies Corporation (operating as Wookey Technologies). For a time, this seemed to bode well for Sansar’s future: the majority of laid-off staff were re-hired, development work resumed, etc., and Sansar event hosted some large(ish) events in 2020, such as Lost Horizon’s Glastonbury Shangri-La. But really, Sansar continued to struggle to build a genuine audience.

Then, on Wednesday, December 22nd, Sansar’s presence on the web abruptly vanished, with the website returning a 404 error, and the client left unable to connect to any servers. As the hours passed, so speculation grew that perhaps the plug had been pulled, particularly in light of the comments that had been doing the rounds that all Sansar technical staff had been placed on extended furlough since some point in September 2021 (which, given the company’s total number of direct employees is put at just 22 by RocketReach and others, could represent a something of a significant portion of staff).

Sansar Discord channel screen capture, courtesy of Dr. Fran Babcock

Having heard the news about the outage, I decided to wait things out for at least 24 hours to see if the situation changed, or if any announcement were to be made. As it turned out, things did start to change in that time, as Sansar’s services began to come back on-line on December 24th, starting with the sansar.com website, with the avatar service about the last visible service to re-surface prior to log-ins resuming.

Exactly what went wrong is unclear – being completely transparent, I’ve not actually been actively involved in Sansar since the end of June 2020 – but so far as I’m aware, nothing official has been stated beyond a Discord channel statement from “Steve from the Wookey management – Sansar team” (displayed on the right), from Steve Moriya. VP of Business Development (with thanks to Dave for the pointer).. Given we are on the year-of-year-break; perhaps something will be stated in the New Year – but time will tell on that.

However, the outage did prompt me to return to information that came my way in September 2021, and which I (again) opted to withhold from blogging about at the time, in order to see how developments progressed.

Coming by way of Cain Maven, a Second Life creator and individual not given to hyperbole or rumour, that information was / is that Wookey Search Technologies Corporation is engaged in a long-running dispute with its former CEO, Mr. John Fried. He has been seeking recompense from the company that could amount to something over US $1 million.

Companies being sued by former employees isn’t precisely unheard of in the United States (Linden Lab themselves has faced it – or the threat thereof – at least once), and can be subject to settlement without ever reaching a formal court case. Hence why, when Cain pointed me to the matter, I decided to hold off on commenting, and await developments.

However, case number CGC20584302¹, filed with the Superior Court of California, San Francisco, does now appear to be on course for a potential trial by jury, following demands to do so were filed with the court by both parties at the end of November 2021.  

The situation has been developing since shortly after Wookey acquired Sansar in 2020; at its heart, is a claim by Mr. Fried that Wookey failed to honour commitments they allegedly made to him concerning salary and reimbursement of relocation fees (from Florida to California), and further failed to honour an alleged US $1 million bonus payment for which he is also seek recompense. It’s a case that has seen both sides file claim and counter-claim, motion and counter-motion; but as noted above, both parties filed demands to move to a trial by jury in late November 2021. As a result, the court issued a Notice of Time and Place of Trial at the start of December 2021, and unless anything else arises, the trial will commence: June 27th, 2022, and it will be heard in the court of the Honourable Suzanne Ramos Bolanos.

That said, a settlement may still be reached – a conference to attempt to see if this is possible remains scheduled for March 16th, 2022, having been postponed from its original December 8th, 2021 date. But the In the meantime, both parties are moving to the Discovery phase of the case  – which may also bring requests for continuance before the judge, further delaying the trail, or altering the direction of the case.

I offer no direct conclusions on the matter here – I’m not a lawyer, after all. However, given Wookey Search Technologies appears to be valued at around  – as of September 2021 – US 3.78 million, were the case to go all the way, and a judgement made in favour of Mr. Fried, it could put a significant dent in the company’s finances. As such, I’ll continue to track the case and look to provide updates in 2022.

  1. Note that this website requires multiple responses to a Captcha system, and can time-out relatively quickly, requiring additional Capcha confirmations.

Sansar: Lost Horizon reaches an audience of 4.3 million

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lost Horizon landing zone

Friday July 3rd and Saturday July 4th, 2020 marked the Glastonbury Shangri-La music festival in Sansar. It’s an event I’ve covered a couple of times of late in these pages (see Glastonbury in Sansar: post event observations and Sansar and VRJAM: of Lost Horizon and music festivals), which in turn offer my own thoughts as an observer of the event both in-world and out-world, and the longer-terms hopes for Sansar, VRJam and the Lost Horizons event banner.

Now we’re learning some of the official feedback on the event, courtesy of the likes of Businesswire and IQ On-line, both of whom report that the Lost Horizon Shangri-La event was witnessed by an audience of some 4.3 million world-wide.

As I’ve noted from my own (admittedly high-level and subjective) observations, average in-world attendance in the six Shangri-Li environments in Sansar appeared to be between 200 and 400 per hour, with potentially higher peaks during the sets by the more well-known names (e.g. Fatboy Slim, Pete Tong, etc.). But, even when taken in terms of cumulative numbers of avatars, these figures are unlikely to exceed a few thousand – so where did the 4.3 million come from?

The answer isn’t hard to find (it’s right their in the report headline on Businesswire: Sansar Delivers a Next-Level Festival Experience to 4.36M Fans Globally Across PC, VR & Mobile – that is, the majority of the audience came from those watching / listening to the event through the various out-world channels such as the Sansar mobile app for iOS and Android, and platforms like Twitch, Beatport and You Tube, Facebook, and so on; and audience encompassing over 1,100 cities in 100 countries.

While the fact the majority of the audience likely came via external sources, rather than through people directly attending the event through an avatar presence might cause some to dismiss it, like it or not, 4.3 million is an impressive figure (and again, to add some balance on this, the much-touted 11 million audience at the Marshmello / Fortnite event of February 2019 was likely made up of a high proportion of people catching the available live streams of that event, even with the organisers working from a larger active user base to start with).

Lost Horizon, July 3rd, 2020

As a slight aside, in my observations of Lost Horizon, I noted the DJs didn’t appear to be using avatars, but were offered in flat-form 2D projections. However, the Businesswire release indicates that custom avatars made for at least some (if not all) of the performers to allow them to have a little fun while attending. In this, Fatboy Slim noted:

Thanks to the Lost Horizon crew for popping my VR cherry. The experience had almost the same euphoric feeling as being at a real festival. For those interested or in there with me, I was the one with Halle Berry’s body and a big smiley head, dancing my t***s off, mind slightly blown by the experience of watching myself DJ. As surreal and trippy as a real late adventure in the Shangri La.

– Fatboy Slim, Businesswire, July 10th, 2020

Fatboy Slim and Chris ‘Tofu’ Macmeikan

Lost Horizon broke so many firsts we’re still counting. It is the closest you can get to being at a festival without leaving your lounge. We all worked really hard to create this next-level thing to see our friends and raise money for the Big Issue and Amnesty. I’m old and remember seeing colour TV for the first time, but this is 100 times better.

– Chris ‘Tofu’ Macmeikan MBE, Lost Horizon and Shangri-La director,
IQ on-line, July 10th, 2020

It’s clear from both of the articles – and others that have appeared quoting the Businesswire release – that all of the organisations involved in Lost Horizon – Glastonbury Shangri-La, VRJam, Wookey / Sansar, Orca Sound Project, etc. – view the event as an appreciable success.

Of course, the big question surrounding the event is its effectiveness in terms of revenue generation. While it is all very well having something to entertain people, at the end of the day, people need to be paid and Sansar itself needs to prove it can be attractive as a revenue generator, both for Wookey Technology and Sansar’s clients. The Businesswire circulated release points to this in glowing terms.

For Sansar, the event demonstrated the massive scale and monetization its platform supports – everything from in-world commerce (ticketing, tipping, merchandising for artists) to broadcasting and stunning visual fidelity. Over the two days of the show, sales in the platform rose by 10x, highlighting the alternate revenue streams Sansar can offer talent, labels and management as they look beyond traditional live events.

– Sansar Lost Horizons release, Businesswire, July 10th, 2020

On the one hand a “10x” increase in sales through the platform sounds impressive – but this again should be balanced by the consideration that on the whole, Sansar’s daily audience isn’t actually that big. Which is not to say things cannot grow, or that broader avenues of monetisation cannot be found.

Again, looking back at the Marshmello / Fortnite event of February 2019, additional monetisation was leveraged through the sale of physical world merchandise as well. Further, ticketing for this kind of event is still in its infancy; this particular Lost Horizon event was available free-of-charge, rather than via paid ticket, for example (although “premium” tickets with associated goodies were available for those wishing to support the event’s charities).

It’s going to take more events to see how all this comes together. fortunately, we may not have long to wait in this regard; more Lost Horizon branded events are promised for the summer and later in the year, and other events involving “acts across multiple genres” are apparently in the works. So those curious / interested should keep an eye on the Sansar event pages.

With thanks to Loki Eliot for the IQ On-Line link.

Sansar and VRJAM: of Lost Horizon and music festivals

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lost Horizon: Nomad Stage, Saturday, July 4th, 2020

Friday July 3rd and Saturday July 4th, 2020 marked the Glastonbury Shangri-La music festival in Sansar, my observations of which appear in Glastonbury in Sansar: post event observations. Others have also written about the event, but what most of us appeared to miss in the run-up to it, is that just a few days ahead of the event a press release was made by Wookey Technologies and UK-based VRJAM that revealed the event’s title, Lost Horizon, is intended to be a “wrapper” for a long-term partnership between the two companies, aimed at making the Lost Horizon name (brand?) “the world’s first turnkey VR festival venue.”

In particular, the press release, which I caught via Businesswire over the weekend, noted:

Lost Horizon, which kicks off July 3 and 4 with the largest arts and music festival in virtual reality, will continue to host live events and festivals this year – allowing countless artists the opportunity to monetize their performances through ticketing, tipping, and the sale of virtual merchandise.

– via Businesswire, June 29th, 2020

It’s not clear at this point in time what other events will be held under the Lost Horizon banner, but speaking to EDMIdentity, Robin Collings, founding director of Glastonbury Shangri-La, and one of the driving forces behind Lost Horizon itself, intimated that as well as purely digital / virtual events, Lost Horizon could in the future (presumably post-pandemic) add physical events in the mix:

We’d really like to tour a project next year and mix Virtual and Physical events in real-time… and we have some more really exciting events in the Lost Horizon world lined up! Watch this space! 

– Robin Collings, talking to EDM Identity

Wookey Technology Products website lists Sansar as a “subsidiary”, rather than a “product”, which potentially raises some interesting questions for future consideration

How such a mixing pans out remains to be seen. In the meantime, the press release also helps to understand just how broad in scope developing and executing Lost Horizon Shangri-La actually was:

For the inaugural show, VRJAM has utilised a team of 80+ people in 12 countries to deliver performances by over 70 music artists and a virtual reality music experience of unparalleled beauty and detail. The effort marks the first time a VR event will engage multiple A-list music artists simultaneously.

– via Businesswire, June 29th, 2020

The Sansar mobile app lets users view events from cameras positioned around the stage(s).

Another point of interest within the press release, relates to the the Sansar app (iOS and Android, and released just ahead of the Shangri-La event) and the direction planned for it – and potentially how central it may become to audience attraction.

Built using the Agora real-time engagement platform, the app is currently geared towards streaming events from Sansar to consumers. However, over time it will evolve to allow deeper levels of interaction, including chatting with other event attendees (watchers?), and (eventually) avatar creation – and thus, presumably, direct access into events from mobile devices.

This latter point clearly interesting: what capabilities will they have? How will they be managed? Sansar already requires some hefty computing capabilities; it’s hard to see mobile devices handling that kind of ompf directly – so might it be that Sansar may offer some form of back-end streaming capability, a-la SL Go (to offer a Second Life parallel)? If so, might this in turn open other opportunities for Sansar.

But even outside of such future considerations, offering direct, camera-based streaming out of Sansar venues (as seen with the Shangri-La event) could do much to leverage audience viewing of events, perhaps tied to some nominal fee for doing so, to help monetise things.

As mentioned above, there do not appear to be any further VRJAM related events in the Sansar calendar right now (or at least, none bearing the VRJAM logo); which is not to say there are no further “live” music events planned.  A glance at the Codex/Atlas page reveals a mix of music events in with the rest, including Monstercat’s on-going Call of the Wild sessions (which seem to be registering less in the way of advanced interest in the past, but I’ve no idea of actual attendance, not having been to one since last October(ish).

According to the Sansar app, some of these events will be offered for streaming – such as the July 17th/18th (or 18th/19th for those in time zones equating to AEST) “@ the Inaverse!” event. This will feature Dutch-Australian trace DJ Marlo Hoogstraten in what is being described as a “new virtual world”, suggesting these “@ the Inaverse” events will be a new regular Sansar feature.

In the meantime, those wishing to get a journalist’s view on the Lost Horizon Shangri-La event should check out Kyle Melnick’s write-up for VR Scout, or watch his video, below.

My thanks to Loki Eliot for the pointer to the EDM Identity interview with Robin Collings.

Glastonbury in Sansar: post event observations

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lost Horizon: Nomad Stage, Saturday, July 4th, 2020

Friday, July 3rd and Saturday July 4th saw Sansar host Glastonbury Shangri-La – the night-time festivities traditionally held during the UK’s Glastonbury Festival (cancelled in the physical world due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic) – across four stages and provide some 24 hours (12 hours per day) of live electronic dance music (EDM) to anyone wishing to attend.

Organised in conjunction with the team behind Glastonbury Shangri-La, led by Creative Director Kaye Dunnings and VRJAM, the free-to-attend or view event featured some headline names in the DJ world including Fatboy Slim (Friday 3rd July) and Pete Tong (Saturday 4th), along with Peggy Gou, Carl Cox, Seth Troxler, and Skream for a total of 50 DJs across the two days. Basic admission to the event was free, but those wishing to receive “VIP” access could optionally pay US $10.00 for goodies, the money going towards donations to Amnesty International and The Big Issue.

Lost Horizon: landing point and stage portals

Called Lost Horizon, the event actually comprised six areas in total, with five comprising:

  • The main stage – modelled after the festival’s famous Gas Tower stage.
  • The Freedom stage.
  • The ShiTV stage, home to films, documentaries, theatre, live art, and comedy.
  • The Nomad stage – a “special” for the event, dedicated entirely to UK culture and drum’n’bass music.
  • ShangrilART – featuring 200 visual art pieces on the theme of human connection.

All of these could be reached either directly through the Sansar Codex (the directory of places and events available for users to visit) or via the fifth physical space offered to visitors: the Lost Horizon landing point. This formed a general gathering point for those coming to the event via the Sansar Nexus (the main landing point for incoming new users / existing users who do not use the web-based Codex (Atlas) to select where they want to go prior to launching the Sansar client), and which in turn offered portals to each of the four stages.

Lost Horizon: The Gas Tower, Saturday, July 4th, 2020

In addition to being open to people to come into and enjoy via their avatar presence (desktop with or without a VR headset), the event was live streamed across a number of platforms, including You Tube, Twitch and Beatport. Further, Lost Horizon was used to introduce / showcase the new Sansar streaming app for iOS and Android devices – an app I’ll be writing about in due course, as my own use of the Android version for this event wasn’t too successful.

A High-Level Look at the Numbers

EDM / trance / techno is hardly my kind of music, so I confess I didn’t spend much continuous time at the event per se – rather, I hopped in and out over the two days for periods of between 10 and 20 minutes, and also tried to keep a watch on things via the Codex (which reports active numbers at events and in turns of the individual instances of the event), and through things like the Steam stats page for Sansar. Unfortunately, I was unable to visit / observe Fatboy Slim or Pete Tong, which may have shown things at variance to my observations on numbers here.

  • The average hourly attendance I noted was within the 200-400 for the event. This was based on periodic checks by dropping in to Lost Horizons, or via checks on the web Codex / Atlas during the following time spans:
    • Friday: 19:30-02:00 BST (11:30-18:00 PDT).
    • Saturday: 17:00-19:00 BST (09:00-11:00 PDT) and 20:00-02:00 BST (noon-18:00  PDT).
  • Checks between this times (around between 2 and 3 per hour – if only perhaps one actually in-world at any given hour) tend to give the following approximate breakdowns of attendance:
    • Gas Tower: 140-200 across an average of five instances.
    • Freedom: 60-70, generally running two instances.
    • Nomad: around 40 in a single instance, sometimes popping up to 45-55 with two instances.
    • ShiTV: appeared to be below 40 most of the time and a single instance.
    • Landing Area: generally a single instance (so no more than 60), at times just tipping over into a second instance with a handful or avatars.
A moment in time: a snapshot of the Lost Horizon Gas Tower attendance figures via the client Codex, giving a breakdown of instances / avatar numbers. Generally, throughout my time checking / observing, 2 or 3 of the instances were running at full capacity (sometimes dipping to 38-39) and the remaining two tended to hover in the 30s and 20s / teens respectively

Continue reading “Glastonbury in Sansar: post event observations” →

Sansar: recent updates and the Sansar Training Grounds

Posted on by Inara Pey
The revamped Sansar log-in screen shares the same image with the installer and updater, giving a more cohesive look to the product

It’s been a while since I poked my head into Sansar; I’ve been watching the events page to see what is going on and the COMETS – users engaged on the platform – have been doing a sterling job in trying to provide a nucleus of a community and running events among themselves. Product Meetings have been few – two since Wookey took over things, one of which I could attend, and one since then; hopefully more will come along as the Wookey Team settle in to remote working – something that was still being set-up at the meeting I did made.

However, a comment passed at the meeting I did make has come to pass: as of June, Monstercat, the Canadian electronic dance music (EDM) is back to running events in Sansar, with their Call of the Wild events now scheduled on a weekly basis. It’ll be interesting to see how these pick up again; prior to the hiatus, they were (on a, I believe, monthly basis) generating around 1,300-1,500 “interested” responses.

May and June have seen a couple of platform updates – release notes here and here. Both offer continuing support for events, with the most recent also featuring a revamped Nexus and updates to the user on-boarding process. Other updates among the recent pair of of releases include new events-oriented templates creators can use for their own events, ability for world owners to mute all voice users in their environments, additional shaders and bug fixes, but I’ll be focusing here on the Nexus and on-boarding.

The Nexus Reloaded

The Nexus has received a significant overhaul whilst also retaining much of its look and feel. Major changes lay in the removal of Agent Prime and any hint of Sansar Quests (although Agent Forma remains in club Forma (she’ll just politely tell you to bugger off when touched).

The Updated Nexus

The Prime Portal central area remains, again with a new look, while the portal itself is gone, as is the lounge area above it. Replacing the Prime Portal is a new event-focused portal that leads to the currently-promoted major event or, if the event is not currently live, provides the option for people to register their interest in attending and to have it added to their calendar. At the time of my visit, this was promoting the Lost Horizon event Sansar is hosting with Glastonbury Shangri-La (read more about this in Glastonbury comes to Sansar for 2020).

Searchlights swing back and forth from the central portal area to illuminate the four major portals  around the outer walkway. These remain pretty much as before: Monstercat, Sanrio World (Hello Kitty) and a link to open the Popular Places section of the Codex (if you’re a Second Life user, Codex = Destination Guide with added functionality), with the forth offering a teaser for Bootshaus (which might be some kind of virtual tie-in with Bootshaus.tv?).

To further encourage general exploration, the Nexus now features an outer “portal wall”. This features a ring of portals leading to the more popular user-created Sansar Experiences. I’m unclear as to how worlds are selected for these portals – I assume there is a process in place – or how / when the destinations to which they point might be refreshed.

The revamped Nexus offers more portals to user-created worlds

On-Boarding Process

The revamped on-boarding process is stills 4-step affair: download the client, create and account and verify e-mail, select an avatar, get dropped into the Nexus. With a notable exception, the majority of the changes in the latest release appear to be cosmetic: the installer, updater and log-in screen all now share the same graphic that appears to have been largely inspired by the cinematic version of Ready Player One.

That exception is the avatar carousel, which sees a new set of seven avatars for new users. Unsurprisingly, the focus is on human avatars with three male and three female in casual / clubbing garb. They are rounded-out by one non-human (but humanoid) robot. I’ve no idea if these are purely Sansar Studios created avatars or if some have been selected from the work of creators (as has been the case in the past).

Four of the seven new starter avatars. Inall there are three male and three female avatars, plus the humanoid robot seen above

Additionally, it would appear that the “getting started” pop-ups have been overhauled to look a little brighter. These are again minimal; all I’ve encountered is how to move and how to emote (play animations) – which is fine for getting around and bopping on a dance floor – but what about things like text chat for those who don’t have a microphone (the latter is at least intuitive, having its own UI button)?

And how about at least giving new users a clear hint that they have a home space? If nothing else, a pointer to the latter might pique the curiosity of some coming into Sansar for an event and get them to come back and have a look at what it is, and so help kick-start them into wider exploration.

New User Experience – Digital University

While not an official undertaking by the Sansar team, when it comes to user on-boarding, the Sansar Training Grounds 101, created by experienced Sansar User ZeroCheese for the Digital University, does offer a more rounded opportunity for new users to more fully get to grips with the client.

Available through the Codex and (currently) featured at the Nexus, this experience offers a guided walk-through of core aspects of using Sansar – movement, manipulating objects, sitting, using emotes (animations) – which includes an introduction to the idea of using the Sansar Store, using voice and text chat, and using the UI. True, not absolutely everything is shown – but frankly, it doesn’t need to be; what is there is sufficient to allow a new user to get on in Sansar, with the rest open to being learned / discovered in time.

Sansar Training Grounds 101

This latter aspect of gaining familiarity with a platform over time is something that often gets overlooked in discussions about the “new user experience”. All too often it seems people get too caught-up in believing everything must be laid before the new user – regardless of the fact that it likely took them weeks or months to understand all that they now want to push onto the new user in a single serving. That it might actually make things harder for said user, and add to the belief that a platform has a “steep” initial learning curve, is often overlooked.

As it is, Training Ground does a pretty good job of covering the vital basics whilst also pointing the way for the user to poke at the client UI and discover / learn about it on their own. One or two aspects could perhaps be a little better: the initial walk training seems excessive, whilst the need to land fruit in the basket is required in order for the next lesson to be reached could be better emphasised. However, what is provided is more than enough to allow a novice user to be able to  more fully enjoy Sansar. If only it were more front-and-centre at the Nexus to encourage interested new users to give it a go.

General Observations

The new look Nexus does what it says on the tin – and by offering more in the way of portals to experiences, it appears to have overcome something of the past critique that it was too much of a bottleneck that stopped incoming users filtering through to other locations on the platform. Certainly, during all of my most recent visits over the last few days, the number of avatars within the Nexus have been nowhere near as lose as they were in the back-end of 2019.

The new avatars are, I would suspect, bland when it comes to those familiar with platforms like Second Life. However, they do fulfil the need to offer events-oriented avatars to incoming attendees, and this should be borne in mind. Hopefully, more will be added to the mix; seven is a very small number, and were an event like Lost Horizon to generate a lot of interest and engagement from newcomers, then leaving the choice of avatar to just those seven could lead to such an event looking something like a clone fest.

Overall use of Sansar currently appears to remain somewhat below pre-sales levels with most activity being driven by the COMETS, as noted above. It’ll be interesting to see how much impact on peak levels of activity the renewed Monstercat events have, and what the upcoming Lost Horizon event does for Sansar’s visibility.

Glastonbury comes to Sansar for 2020

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Glastonbury Shangri-La Gas Tower in Sansar. Courtesy of Lost Horizon

Those who attend the annual Glastonbury Festival in England are likely aware that the SARS-CoV 2 pandemic has caused this year’s event to be cancelled in the physical world. Nevertheless, one part of it will be going ahead within the virtual realm – and the venue for it will be Sansar.

The team behind Glastonbury’s night-time activities  – called Glastonbury Shangri-La – have teamed up with Wookey Technologies and VRJAM to stage a two-day virtual festival on Friday, July 3rd and Saturday, July 4th. The virtual event, called Lost Horizon, will take place across four purpose-built stages in Sansar. More than 50 music acts including DJs Peggy Gou, Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox and Pete Tong will play during the daily 12-hour sessions. In addition, the festival will also feature more than 200 visual art pieces, curated by the ShangrilART group on the theme of human connection.

As well as being available directly through Sansar as a ticketed event – those wishing to attend can get their free ticket via the Sansar website – Lost Horizon will also be streamed via You Tube, Twitch, Beatport and other platforms, will be viewable on a mobile app (to be made available from June 26th, 2020), and sets will be broadcast via radio.

Another view of the Gas Tower stage in Sansar, courtesy of Lost Horizon

The stages for the virtual event include Glastonbury Shangri-La’s famous Gas Tower, the focal point for event activities in the physical world. It will feature the likes of Fatboy Slim, and tech-house Ibiza favourites Jamie Jones and Seth Troxler. Alongside of it, the Freedom stage will feature Frank Turner, Alabama 3 and Coldcut. You can see the full line-up of acts on the Lost Horizon website, while the ShiTV stage will include films, documentaries, theatre, live art, comedy, animation and talks.

Glastonbury Shangri-La first took place in 2008. Over the years it has grown and evolved, offering those attending Glastonbury a rich mix of music and art in “after hours” sessions that take place overnight when the “main” sets have all finished.

With its roots deep in contemporary music, art and activism, Shangri-La has established itself as a legendary field in UK festival culture, engaging a truly dynamic community of artists, builders, and revolutionary creators and known for showcasing the latest “off main stage” acts.

– Lost Horizon, Glastonbury Shangri-La

Glastonbury Shangi-La Shitv stage in Sansar, courtesy of Lost Horizon

Glastonbury Shangri-La Creative director Kaye Dunnings conceived the idea for Lost Horizon shortly after the decision was made to cancel the physical world Glastonbury Festival in March 2020. Whilst the event is virtual, Dunnings hopes the same sense of activism that permeates the physical world event will filter through into the virtual as well.

While tickets to the event are free, attendees will be encouraged to donate to The Big Issue, the world’s most widely circulated street newspaper, raising money to offer homeless people / those at risk of homelessness, the opportunity to earn a legitimate income and helping them to reintegrate into mainstream society, and to Amnesty International.

Activism being so important to us, we wanted people to come and rave and interact and party and have a really great time. But we are also really passionate about being conscious, while you are doing that, of the world around you and how you can get involved in things. We want people to take action now more than ever. We want people to get involved in stuff outside the festival, so they come and have a great time but actually do something meaningful afterwards. We want to inspire people to actually take it that step further themselves.

– Kaye Dunnings, Glastonbury Shangri-La Creative Director

Dunning also recognises that as well as offering the opportunity to present Glastonbury Shangri-La during the pandemic, Lost Horizon could be the start of a new means reaching a global audience – much as how Linden Lab hoped, and the Wookey team continues to hope.

With Shangri-La presents: Lost Horizon, we’re delivering the music festival of the future: deeply immersive, fully on-line, accessible to anyone and anywhere with a PC or phone at their disposal. Shangri-La presents: Lost Horizon exists at the vanguard of something truly incredible, and we couldn’t be more excited to turn this page. The future of live events is virtual and we’re incredibly excited to be bringing it to fruition.

– Kaye Dunnings, Glastonbury Shangri-La Creative Director

Whether that is the case, remains to be seen. In the meantime all those interested in Lost Horizon can find more details below.

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