More than a game
Minecraft music festival proves to be a blockbuster lockdown event
LOS ANGELES It’s a spring Saturday and somewhere deep in Philadelphia, five 20-somethings are huddled in a small apartment, each hunched over a computer. The click-clack of their keyboards is the only sound heard in the room, but via their devices, they’re running one of the largest music festivals in the world.
April 25’s Block by Blockwest, a cheeky twist on the annual South by Southwest confab called off this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Minecraft, the beloved online game in which block-shaped players can build the virtual worlds of their wildest dreams.
The team behind this particular world is Courier Club, an up-andcoming indie rock band consisting of singer and guitarist Timothy Waldron, lead guitarist Ryan Conway, bassist Michael Silverglade and drummer Jack Kessler. Along with Silverglade’s brother and self-taught Minecraft expert, Steven, they saw all of coronavirus’ music-related cancellations as an opportunity to take live music online. But that dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
On April 25, 30,000 festival attendees were waiting to join the server before the event began — a number that grew to 100,000 by the end of the first hour. The server they built could only hold a few thousand players at a time.
Why the hype? Courier Club and their manager, D.J. Sutera, had managed to book an impressively wide array of bands such as Pussy Riot, Nothing, Nowhere., Fever 333, Against The Current, Cherry Glazerr, Health, Sir Sly, Idles, Hunny and more, all for the benefit of the Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund. The day before the fest, they announced British triphop legends Massive Attack would be joining as a special guest.
Steven Silverglade helped them build the Minecraft server, which required a $400 machine to run, as well as the virtual world, which boasted three stages. Artists had submitted pre-recorded sets to be streamed live through the festival’s website, giving attendees concert-comparable sound. What had started as an out-of-the-box idea had turned into much more. And that brought with it certain expectations of quality.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the music industry as the world knows it has changed forever. With social distancing guidelines cancelling all live music events and possibly preventing them until fall 2021, touring can no longer be an artist’s main source of revenue or exposure for the foreseeable future. Therefore, musicians have turned to other outlets to keep their fans engaged, most notably livestream concerts on social media platforms like Instagram.
The entertainment value lacking in most at-home performances, however, opens the door to a music festival set within a game. In February 2019, Marshmello broke the mould with the first ever Fortnite concert that drew some 10 million viewers and inspired the likes of Dillon Francis, Steve Aoki and deadmau5 and, most recently, Travis Scott to elevate the concept and monetize it. In the case of Scott, his April 23 appearance on Fortnite reached 12.3 million people and launched a new song straight to the top of the charts, in addition to moving merch specially created for the Epic Games collaboration.
Open Pit, a virtual event production company, has been throwing Minecraft festivals for two years. Development lead Eden SegalGrossman said Open Pit simply began as a way for a group of Minecraft-loving and music-minded friends from around the world to hang out. But soon, that initial group grew by the thousands.
Although raising money for coronavirus relief has been the most tangible outcome of these Minecraft festivals, artists and music lovers alike are looking to them as a blueprint for live music in a post-pandemic world, as well as a catalyst for much-needed change in the music industry.
Joe Talbot, frontman of British punk band Idles, hopes that events like this will spark a greater respect for the arts across society.
“Music and the arts are one of the most important and intrinsically human ways of keeping us all connected beyond our differences. People are really relying on the arts to get through this,” Talbot says. “It’s interesting because we are seeking to help our fans and keep up a relationship, but we’re the ones losing out on all the money.”
Courier Club’s Conway pointed out the expensive barrier to entry that most live music events pose, especially festivals. Minecraft festivals are free for those who have already downloaded the game, and only US$26.95 for new players — that’s about the price of a standard club show ticket.
Another luxury of virtual events is the ability to cancel or postpone them without having the complications of refunds or production expenses. After the Block by Blockwest server crash, it was rescheduled and held on May 16.
Though there was some backlash, Courier Club’s public failure made it possible to recruit an international team of developers to help them run the back end of the festival. This effort will be much needed, as they are now building the server 97 times its original capacity.