Since I haven’t actually seen the ST’s (Second Theatre) demo yet, I can only speculate at this point based on the information I got from the kick-off meeting. In the meeting with Erkki last Friday, I asked about the production process. According to Erkki’s answer and my understanding, ST is currently a stage recording, if so, then the difference with offline theatre is mainly just the convenience of watching, through ST you can watch theatre anytime and anywhere without the limitation of time and space. But this convenience is currently held back by many other elements, such as the popularity of device, so far, the reality of the implementation is not really convenient. This is discussed in the next section. In this section, there are two elements that I would like to explore, one is that in the VR space, in terms of content presentation, whether the audience can switch the stage scenery at will, such as from panorama to medium view to close-up. This might reflect the real advantages of being in an infinite virtual space. As well as, from 180-degree recording to 360-degree recording, so that the theatre is different from the traditional theatre stage, from a single-sided stage to a wrap-around type of stage, which can enhance the user’s sense of immersion. And this approach may, in turn, drive artistic change. Of course, these ideas, as I said at the beginning, is only based on the information obtained so far for a relatively shallow thinking, the specific still need to see the actual demo to be able to take the next step to explore.
As I mentioned earlier about the popularity of VR devices, from the information I gathered from Firstrow, ST’s benchmark company, they are currently facing the same problem. The solution they offer at this stage is that you can rent a VR headset for free by paying the postage on their website, and enjoy the right to use it for two days. The cost of watching a show with a rental VR headset starts at €17.90 per show. At the moment, the rental of VR devices is only supported within the regions of Germany, Austria and Spain. And I didn’t find an answer on their webpage and social media about whether it’s possible to watch their recorded content with your own VR device. I have written an email enquiry but have yet to get a reply. The positioning of Firstrow at the top of their website is ‘Your Virtual Home Theatre’, whereas at the bottom of the homepage it says there are a number of categories of content that can be made available for viewing, including treatre, drama, ballet, travel, musik & meditation, kid’s corner, and so on. The ambivalence between the two makes it hard for me to tell if this is a virtual content platform, a virtual theatre, or a strategy to promote their own brand of VR equipment by experiencing a wide variety of content to attract users to rent their equipment. In the next step, I will continue to collect information about popular solutions for VR devices. Also try to see if I can get any usable experience from the failure cases.
Another point that confuses me is about the target users. Although Erkki cites some offline theatre viewing data, in a certain dimension this is a stolen concept. A theatregoer in an offline theatre is not necessarily the target audience for an online virtual theatre. To take a perhaps extreme example, a 60-year-old theatre-goer who frequents the theatre is less likely to want to watch at home on a VR device. Whereas a 20 year old non-theatre fan who hardly ever goes to offline theatres may be willing to try to watch a play at home using a VR device. Of course, this is something that requires further research to assess the portrait of our target audience. As Erkki says, this is the boring but arguably exciting part.
In next report, I will do more research and try to use SWOT to analysis feasibility.