Meta is hosting a Foo Fighters concert after Super Bowl LVI to promote its work building VR headsets and a platform for multiplayer virtual worlds.
You don’t have to own a VR headset, though, to see the performance. Here’s how you can check out the Foo Fighters concert on February 13th:
The Foo Fighters show will start after Super Bowl LVI is over, or at 8 pm Pacific time, whichever is later. The concert is being broadcast via Horizon Venues with “multiple 180° cameras positioned around the stage…[with] custom stage design, practical effects, sophisticated lighting programs, and XR elements blended into the concert scene.” Horizon is the brand Meta uses to refer to all of its multiplayer-enabled virtual worlds, and the company’s head Mark Zuckerberg set a goal for those worlds to be accessible via traditional smartphones and 2D interfaces sometime in 2022, much like Rec Room. Meta doesn’t have that up and running yet, though, so if you have a Quest VR headset then downloading Horizon Venues and heading into a lobby after the game is probably going to be the best way to watch the concert. If you don’t have a Quest VR headset, though, people will need to watch via the Foo Fighters Facebook Page, the Meta Quest Facebook Page, or on the Foo Fighter’s Instagram page. The concert will also be promoted within the “Watch Together” feature of Meta’s Messenger platform.
Meta says the Foo Fighters set list is being kept private but it “will include some rarely played tracks—and one that’s never been heard in concert before.” The concert will also be available for the next month on replay in Venues or on Oculus TV.
In addition to the concert, Meta appears to be using the Super Bowl to debut an advertisement that removes the Oculus branding from the Quest 2 headset, continuing a changeover process that started last year which sees the company focus on VR and AR and changes its corporate name from Facebook to Meta Platforms.
