Friday 25 October marks the grand opening of club VERSE, a virtual musical venue in VRChat. Creator of this space is the Japan-based virtual rock singer-songwriter loy, who has been active in spotlighting virtual musicians through the ALLVERSE initiative in recent years.
The ALLVERSE initiative was born from the discovery that there were still few opportunities for virtual artists to brand themselves and make a name for themselves. In recent years, a lot of hard work has gone into creating virtual places of their own through various side projects, including various music festivals (such as VTuber Sonic Festival (Vsoni), ALLVERSE WEEKENDS at international conventions, and even VTV, a weekly YouTube stream introducing virtual artists and (new) music. Two years ago, ALLVERSE World was opened, which is a virtual world where music and entertainment come together through various events. Another great example of how ALLVERSE operates is the release of a cover compilation album featuring 16 virtual artists, each with their version of the song l’avenir, which was originally produced by loy. This album was released to celebrate the third anniversary of the original track’s release.
Next step for ALLVERSE
The grand opening of club VERSE is the next step for the ALLVERSE initiative, the stage will officially launch on 1 November with weekly music performances on Friday nights (Japanese time). One week before the actual opening, on Friday 25 October, club VERSE will have a grand opening with performances by several virtual musicians from Japan who have collaborated more often on the ALLVERSE initiative, including bilingual vocalist and half fairy, half human Lily Kanon, who has also been highly involved in ALLVERSE WEEKENDS and VTV World, virtual vocalist and designer 猫日和きゃりこ (Calico Nekobiyori), virtual vocalist and VTuber メルシュ-Malstrøm-, virtual pianist おまる (Omaru), improvisational musician and VTuber 警戒ブロオドキャストCHERRY (Keikai Broadcast CHERRY), and oni and fox VTuber 狐ノ里たけのこ (Kitsunenosato Takenoko). Rock musician loy will also take the stage. Earlier this year, the singer-songwriter released his first full-length album, titled einst-アインスト-, which can also be considered a best-of album at the same time.
Club VERSE is part of ALLVERSE World, a virtual world that opened two years ago. The grand opening will take place on the second anniversary of ALLVERSE World. Rock musician and project leader loy explains: “club VERSE is designed to be a space where you can enjoy music like in a livehouse, or dance to the rhythm like in a club, all while relaxing with a drink in hand. We aim to create a lively and open space where music fans can gather freely and enjoy music in their own style.”
The idea was initially to host regular live performances since the launch of ALLVERSE World two years ago. “However, the scale of ALLVERSE became too large, making regular operations difficult. So, we decided to start in a more compact and sustainable form, and now, on the occasion of ALLVERSE World’s second anniversary, we are launching club VERSE,” loy explains.
A permanent cast of members of the ALLVERSE initiative will be utilised who will perform on a rotating schedule, with a few performing each week. This includes the musicians who will perform at the grand opening, but other names have also been mentioned by loy: 譜奏 棗 (NatsumeFukana), たなか きさめ (Tanaka Kisame), TOCORO十 (Tokoroten), 箱乃なかみ (Hakono Nakami), Sha-la, 葉柳ちぐさ (Chigusa Hayanagi), and 海月シェル (Umitsuki Shell). Other names will be added here in the future, but the counter currently stands at around 20 regular members.
Attractiveness of sharing virtual music and VR
As for what loy hopes to achieve with this new project, he says: “At club VERSE, we aim to create a place where virtual artists who are truly dedicated to music can come together and share the appeal of virtual music and VR live performances globally. Since it can be challenging for individuals to organise VR live shows on their own, we want to offer a platform where artists can regularly perform and showcase their music to the world. Additionally, solo artists often have fewer opportunities to interact with others, but we hope club VERSE will grow into a community where like-minded musicians can gather, support each other, and push each other to improve.”
During the pandemic, when physical events were cancelled and the doors of cultural organisations were closed, going to events digitally, such as watching performances via livestreams, sounded like a logical next (and temporary) step. One step further is virtually, like an avatar, stepping into a world and attending events there. For instance, I have previously written about Music VKet where (Japanese) music meets metaverse. These kinds of events are still taking place in large numbers, for instance, besides the future club VERSE, there are other such music venues and cafes where regular performances take place. And the beauty of it is that you don’t even necessarily need VR gear to attend these kinds of virtual events, a good computer (and a good microphone) is already a good start, besides the fact that you need to have a VRChat account (or a Cluster account, if you are going to attend events there).
All details in one place
You can choose between two options to attend the grand opening of club VERSE on Friday 25 October. You can drop by in VRChat as a visitor, but if this is not possible for you, there is also an option to watch the opening via ALLVERSE’s YouTube channel. To access club VERSE in VRChat, it is important to become a member of the ALLVERSE VRChat Group, you can do this by logging into VRChat with your browser. Once a member, you will get updates on when the virtual doors of club VERSE open while you are active in VRChat.
The doors of club VERSE will open at 20.30 Japanese time (that’s 13.30 CEST, 12.30 BST) and half an hour later, at 21.00 JST, the opening will be officially kicked off with the performances of the seven virtual musicians from Japan.
It is worth noting that the upcoming weekly performances at club VERSE will be streamed on YouTube. On this, loy explains: “Since many fans may not be able to participate in VR, we plan to deliver an immersive experience through 4K quality streams, offering a near-VR experience. We also hope that these streams will inspire more people to start exploring Virtual Reality.”
The best way to keep up to date with club ALLVERSE’s weekly performances is to keep an eye on a number of platforms. We list them here: loy’s X (previously Twitter), ALLVERSE VRChat Group, Discord Fan Server, en ALLVERSE official website.
