Future / ENTERTAINMENT MOVES METAVERSE

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© Salif Gueye

ENTERTAINMENT MOVES METAVERSE

By Steven Saltzman

Shaping the Future of Entertainment - Bringing luxury, music & entertainment into the virtual world against the iconic backdrop of Monaco.

2022 will be noted in history as the pivotal year for the metaverse technology with a projected USD 1 trillion yearly business opportunity, as estimated by JP Morgan. 2022 sees the First Edition of Meta Entertainment World and the Metaverse Awards, distinguished as part of a professional Summit in the classic setting of the Hermitage Hotel in May, putting Monaco on the “metaverse” map globally.

So, what is THE Metaverse? A Metaverse is an online 3D world, the next dimension of the internet, an equivalent step like the move from black-white TV to colour TV 60 years ago. Now, we’re moving from 2D to 3D! There have been several important Metaverses that have been created:

The Sandbox metaverse was the first, and was conceived in 2011 as a two-dimensional platform, and since musician Snoop Dogg moved as the first celebrity into the Sandbox in 2021, it has continued to grow especially in Entertainment. Warner Music Group is

© Sewan Gack

even staking an outpost, which will feature a virtual “Music-Themed World” Park, where innovative music experiences will take place, and artists will engage with their fans, according to Oana Ruxandra, CDO & EVP Business Development, Warner Music Group.

As the Metaverse continued to grow, Decentraland was then formed in 2017. As part of the world’s first and largest Metaverse Music Festival, you can experience its “Genesis Plaza.” In October 2021 we saw stars such as Paris Hilton and musician DeadMau5.

Coachella, one of the largest music festivals worldwide is also taking advantage of the global reach of the metaverse trend and associated technology. They are offering fans NFT’s as tickets, collectibles and a lifetime NFT Festival Pass. Coachella’s next edition is taking place on April 2022 with stars Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Kanye West.

Another example of where this new blockchain technology is being utilized is The Listen Campaign. They champion global children’s rights from the producers of the 9 largest global media campaigns in history, like Nelson Mandela. “One Humanity against Apartheid”, or “The Wall” celebrating the reunification of Germany in Berlin. This event is set for 2023, and is supported by an NFT listeners’ collectible auction.

After Music, Luxury Fashion Brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Cavalli, Elis Saab are stepping into the Metaverse, as Decentraland will be hosting the world’s first Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) from March 24-27th. Gucci and Ralph Lauren have already virtual pop-up stores, and you can also find digital shows like “Afterworld” from Balenciaga. Metaverse fashion experts such as Demi Karanikolaou “Maison Demi Karan” are helping Brands navigate this new world. Fashion Designer Philipp Plein launched a humanoid robot called Romeo 1.0 to perform its fashion show, so if your avatar lacks clothes, you can shop those in Philipp’s 17000 sqm shopping mall with hotel and art museum, worth USD 1.4 Mio. It’s also just around the corner of JP Morgan’s Bank branch whose address is:

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Onyx Lounge, Metajuku mall, Decentraland.

For Disney, a former theme park executive might soon create Disney’s new metaverse.

Metaverses are now popping up everywhere. There is also gaming-based Fortnite, with amazing digital graphical support, which even offered a Travis Scott concert in collaboration with Epic Games.

There is Roblox, which pairs with Sony, Superworldapp, Blankos metaverse, and D-World here in Monaco. Additionally, there are businesses that are supporting upcoming metaverses, helping companies to achieve their operations and technical objectives, like Microsoft Mesh, software giant SAP, or MCity by Touchcast, they enable global companies to realize and produce projects in 3D.

With Netflix’s Squid Game entering the metaverse already last year, via netflixmetaverse.co was just the next step, and other streaming services will follow or evaluate opportunities to enter “the next generation of entertainment” quotes Steven Saltzman, Founder of the Meta Entertainment World as part of his company Advance in Monaco, looking back at his family of film production particularly in the Spy genre (Ipcress File - Harry Palmer which premiered March 6 and James Bond in 1962).

“Metaverse and Entertainment cannot exist without each other,” like a car needing petrol in order to run; and “as we moved from black and white pictures to colour pictures, the next generation will move from the internet to a virtual 3D world” adds Steven Saltzman.

And while recording Artists “in the old days” had to convince record labels, film distributors or galleries to sign them and to be distributed, “they now can go themselves directly into a metaverse, and release their own content. This already starts with the new video content in the metaverse and should continue with film coin, and Metaverse Movie” says Mitch Lowe, an entertainment expert, and a previous Netflix Executive, CEO of MoviePass, and President of Redbox.

“At a time when humanity is challenged to think differently about the future of work, we need new paradigms and new tools to imagine a better way of doing things,” said Edo Segal, founder and CEO of Touchcast, who will be producing the 3D content of the Meta Entertainment World & the Metaverse Awards in its metaverse MCity this May. “We have been building technologies for the past decade, and have to run mission-critical events for the world’s biggest companies in MCity. Now it’s time to open it up to let in the rest of the world.”

Metaverses are enabling artists to keep their intellectual property and ownership, which can be secured through a modern deed called an “NFT” (Non-Fungible Tokens), linked to a “smart contract”. However, for the technical part of their realization artists will often have to use an intermediary.

“I assembled a team of talented artists, writers and engineers to help envision the future of digital

© Courtesy of SBM

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performances. We watched artists experiment with live streams and virtual gigs, but they often didn’t feel real, and so Stage11 was born”, explains Jonathan Belolo, Founder and CEO of Stage 11, who will reimagine music for the Metaverse, and currently has partnerships with Martin Garrix, David Guetta and Snoop Dogg.

Meta Entertainment World in Monaco is Metaverse “agnostic”, featuring all of the above metaverses and partners, bringing innovators and investors, global partners from finance, marketing, talent & technology together in a cosmopolitan professional business summit, awarding in 10 categories, announcing the first awards nominees between April 2nd and May 2nd with a vote open to the public. We are equally creating a “documentary as well as a showcase production”, says Steven Saltzman, who is also already in preproduction for two of his next films.

Entering "Meta Entertainment World” will be a sensory experience where you will live within the world of entertainment and enjoy being immersive within the Metaverse. During the Summit, points of discussion will include the different Metaverses, NFTs, Sports, Formula 1, Football, Music, content, finance, Crypto, Film & Streaming; and a concentration of the Metaverse applications for luxury goods, smart cities, real estate & art. The Monaco Meta Entertainment world is setting a milestone by contributing to the digital transformation of the Principality.

“Working truly globally, our Meta Entertainment World also presents the Metaverse in the Monaco Expo 2020 pavilion in Dubai, where a small networking event took place on March 6” says Co-Founder Carmen Franko, with similar events planned during Art Basel Miami.

The Meta Entertainment World Seoul team just confirmed that South Korea’s Ministry of ICT will spend about USD 186 Mio to create a broad metaverse ecosystem for its digital content, having naturally large partners like Samsung onboard, featuring also the largest Korean K-Pop Artist BTS – also soon to be expected in the K(-Pop) metaverse.

BTS also collaborates with Coldplay, releasing “my universe” together, a beautiful homage to how small we are all together on this Earth compared with the full universe, whether we are still dreaming or already in the new technological environment called “metaverse”.

We stay positive that Metaverses will support global collaboration and peace.