Take Back The Nights: How The Team Combined A Music Festival With An Open-World Video Game

Step into the world of Take Back The Nights, a virtual festival that lets you take control (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

Music festivals – remember those? The state of music festivals in Singapore has been incapacitated by the pandemic, left in a comatose state with little hope to cling onto. While festivals have resumed pretty much elsewhere in the world, ours have been shelved no thanks to a negative local view on nightlife.

Do you miss the fantastical stage setups? Do you miss getting lost within extraordinary festival grounds? Or is it the visceral sensation of communal interaction that you sorely crave? One can dream, right? For the Take Back The Nights [TBTN] team, they dreamt big and achieved the unfathomable.

What was once an idea that started baking in February 2020, TBTN is now an evolved, fully-cooked virtual festival that twists the formula of music events in the digital age. Before you start thinking that this is yet another online show you watch behind your screen, take a moment to consider this – TBTN is a milestone endeavour that fuses the vibrancy of a music festival with the unrestrained freedom of an open-world video game. Offering an interactive element unlike most, TBTN lets you explore a reimagined Somerset Belt – aggrandised with futuristic skyscrapers, neon signage and a majestic flying whale that you can ride (because why not?) – with a 3D avatar that you can control. And just like you would in an authentic festival, you can check out attractions, stages and performances with friends in real time. TBTN has created a playground, and you are Player One amongst many.

Haneri is one of the many acts to perform for the episodic festival (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

TBTN is a mighty concept forged by industry veterans – Audrey Lim with the vision, and Caspar Francis who helms the agency, Rawspark, which pieced this fictitious world together. As music zealots, they have assembled a lineup that would please both gig and party communities, with acts including pop-punk legends Plainsunset, rock fixtures Shirlyn + The UnXpected, national treasure Linying, electronic icon Aldrin, bass rebels O$P$, and other contemporaries such as Fzpz, Astronauts, Kitty Purrnaz and Fingerfunk. What’s considerably praiseworthy is the opportunity for visitors to show support, through payment avenues that unlock perks like festival power-ups and goodies that are delivered to homes in real life. Through this cross-reality execution that blends the physical and digital possibilities of our scene, TBTN is giving everyone an experience that’s long been absent – a feeling of togetherness and wonder, united by the power of music and the escape of a festival.

So how does one even begin to come up with an idea as grandiose as this? How do you build a world that no one’s ever seen? And how do you feed the curiosities of a restless community while supporting an industry in its most trying time? The team of Take Back The Nights plugs into this interview.

 

There are three stages to explore in this fantasy zone (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

It’s not every day you wake up and think of building a virtual world for music fans. How did this heavyweight idea first come together?

This iteration of Take Back The Nights came from the ashes of what we thought was a super original idea back in February 2020 – creating a live-streamed music concert that audiences could fund via live contributions. Remember, this was before we even went into Singapore’s first circuit breaker, before we knew everyone would start a live-stream and create QR codes for audiences to Paylah contributions to.

As a gig musician, event producer and presenter, Audrey could see the writing on the wall when restrictions began to take hold of the events industry. She managed to pre-emptively pull together a team of volunteers from different sectors of the music industry who pledged their skills, equipment and networks to try to keep our highly skilled musicians and technicians employed. This first version of Take Back The Nights (filmed just days before circuit breaker was announced) manifested as two pilot episodes of live-streamed concerts with a talk-show segment, and joined hands with a certified music charity which could receive funds from the public. These funds were to enhance the stipends of the non-volunteer musicians and technicians associated with the live-stream. Audrey funded this out of pocket, but is greatly beholden to all the volunteers in the team who believed in the cause and lent their equipment and know-how to the project.

Audrey Lim, one of the co-founders of TBTN, first conceptualised the event in February 2020 (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

Unfortunately, although each member of the volunteer team had years of experience and were known quantities in the entertainment scene, the powers that be who were handing out emergency arts funding did not recognise this amorphous, non-corporate entity and declined to support the endeavour. We also discovered that Singapore audiences are not used to paying for art, and we had overestimated the public’s desire to keep the music alive via tipping or donations, no matter how easy and safe we made it for them to contribute.

We went back to the drawing board and thought of different options that we could use to achieve the same goal of having the music ecosystem care for itself, but also one which would be less likely to be replicable. Caspar, who at that time was one of the team of volunteers, suggested that we build a festival in a game environment. It clicked, Audrey and Caspar started a company, and we’ve been running with that idea ever since.

Visitors can pay to unlock power-ups like flying on a giant manta ray (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

Talk about a slow-cooked idea. Now here you are! Were you inspired by other festivals in the world when dreaming up the wonderland of TBTN?

Festivals are in our DNA. Audrey and Caspar first met at the Substation at a promo event for Rockaway Festival, KL, when Caspar was working for business and experience incubator, Livescape. The two kept meeting at other Livescape festivals like It’s The Ship, which Caspar was a significant part of. As a music manager and experience enthusiast, Audrey’s been around the world attending music festivals and conferences from SXSW in Austin, Texas to Clockenflap in Hong Kong; from Zandari Festa in Seoul to Big Sound in Brisbane; from Canadian Music Week in Toronto to Summersonic in Tokyo.

All of these varied festival experiences as promoter, organiser, programmer, manager and attendee marked the way we imagined this new festival we were creating. We knew we wanted to capture the excitement of stumbling upon new sounds, the camaraderie of being part of a shared experience, the comfort of being amongst kindred spirits and, overall, the joy of music as it is being performed.

Like in an open-world video game, your avatar is free to roam (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

The festival environment also takes after Singapore’s Somerset Belt. Why this domain, and how did the team try to replicate this area in the virtual space?

We could give you the PR answer, which is that we were bored of seeing Singapore being narrowly defined as the Crazy Rich zones of Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by The Bay. We could also tell you true stories about how the Somerset Belt (especially the Emerald Hill/Cuppage bars and the Youth Park) was transformative to the local music scene and connects the past and present generation of musos and music fans. It was the birthplace of several local acts like Jack and Rai; it was where local bands played which inspired a new generation of musicians like Benjamin Mah from the Astronauts; and more personally, Audrey used to sing in bars on the stretch. We all have memories of watching gigs at the Youth Park. But if we’re being extra candid, the most pressing reason was that Audrey was not able to fund this iteration of Take Back The Nights herself, and so we successfully applied for funding from the Somerset Belt Master Plan.

We didn’t want to slavishly replicate what we saw on a map, so we took liberties with landmarks like the Red Bus and the Skate Park, and named the in-world train stops after colloquial names for other landmarks in the area. There are subtle echoes of reality in the design of this whole new world, and it’s gratifying to know that we’re building community partnerships and associations in our digital world that can spill over into the real world.

Will you find your friends at the bar in between sets? (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

There is a strong interactive element that’s inspired by the freedom of open-world video games. What games influenced the mix of ideas, and why incorporate this format in the first place?

We liked the concept of online gaming in general, with its high levels of interactivity and its ability to hold our attention for hours at a time.  We took a very close look at games you could play with your friends in real time, like Team Fortress 2, Animal Crossing and Fortnite.  It was important for us to include this real-time interaction with friends because we remember yearning for experiences that allowed for maximum interaction when we were not able to physically meet up, and creating a 3D open-world simulation allowed us to get the closest to that. The gaming format also, in turn, gives us the chance for more elaborate storytelling – giving audiences the chance to ‘upgrade’ to festival superpowers like in-world flying, and taking airborne joyrides on Chomp Chomp the Stingray and Sambal the Whale to redefine our own understanding of how we consume a music festival by literally changing our viewpoint to one unconstrained by physics.

It was also important for us not to stock on-demand videos so we would capture as much of the ‘live’ element as possible. We felt very vindicated when Fortnite ran the fixed-timing Travis Scott presentation that you had to be punctual for if you wanted the full experience. We had, by that time, consciously decided to run on a festival schedule to keep things closer to a real-life festival experience and create a real reason for friends to meet up in real time, even if it’s in a digital world. You can’t time-shift it and catch a set later, if you miss the moment, it’s gone.

Jack & Rai setting up for their performance which is motion captured and fed into the digital realm (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

There is a colourful diversity of electronic and live acts on the lineup, ranging from punk legends to EDM veterans. How did y’all decide on the acts?

Our first priority was to keep the faith with the acts who participated in our first live-stream, back when the budgets were decidedly smaller – Jack & Rai, Izat Ibrahim and Fingerfunk were the first three acts on our board. We were mindful that the gig musos and DJs have effectively faced structural unemployment for almost two years now, so we wanted to programme as many as we could to spread the love around. We’re grateful that pub and club stalwarts Shirlyn + the UnXpected, Intriguant, and Inquisitive said yes to us. As huge fans of the music scene, we know which acts we look forward to watching live. Now that we were in a position to program our own festival, we decided to blue-sky it.

This led us to take a chance and ask Plainsunset if they would consider coming out of retirement. When they unexpectedly said yes, we felt the need to strike a balance by introducing younger, female energy into the mix with Kitty Purrnaz, Haneri, Farah Farz and Linying. In the spirit of community, we also had our visual arts partner, Metamo Industries, curate one of the four instalments of the festival to get a plurality of perspectives, and we ADORE their picks! It was Audrey’s nth time watching Aldrin and her first time watching FZPZ and she’s smitten.

The revered Plainsunset returns for a rare performance on an even rarer format (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

And there’s also a healthy inclusion of non-music participants in the arts and F&B spaces. How are these members of the community going to get involved?

Our motivation for starting this was initially focused on the performance arts, music in particular, because that’s where our roots are. The pandemic has turned out to be an equal-opportunity tyrant and we were also painfully aware that our brothers and sisters in visual arts and hospitality are also having a rough time. The good people at O$P$ had previously reached out to collaborate with Audrey before, and have now expanded their team into the newly minted Metamo Industries. They also work with Unreal Engine. It was a really good fit to get Metamo onboard in multiple ways – as visual artists in-world, as panellists on Skky Stage, as performers, and as curators of one instalment of the festival.

We’re also linking up with local businesses, within F&B and beyond, to set up virtual booths in-world, so festival-goers can share some love with other talented made-in-SG products. It all goes toward building that full, festival experience.

“I’m very lucky to have had people in the scene put their trust in me, from our first iteration as a live-stream, to this new evolution as a VR music festival.” – Audrey Lim (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

For Audrey, can you tell us more about your contributions to the music industry, and how you ended up running this large-scale feat?

Audrey: I’m Asian, so it’s really awkward talking about myself. I suppose I started in music when I was cast as Dorothy in a school production of The Wiz, but my drama teacher told me I wasn’t allowed to sing because she said I *couldn’t* sing. It wasn’t long after that incident that I began singing professionally in bars, hotels and at events. I was also cast in a musical mounted by a professional theatre company, where I was allowed to sing.

After working as a gig muso, coming out to watch other bands and being naturally interested in finding more about the history of the scene, I inadvertently started managing a local band. At the time, I was told that it was a waste of time and money, and getting brands to pay real money for original music on an island that delights in cover bands simply *couldn’t* be done. It wasn’t long after that I turned a local band into a local brand, and this coincided with a ratcheting up of rates that corporates were used to paying for Singapore brands. I initially faced considerable resistance (primarily from the artists, who thought I was losing them work), but I think being stubborn about the importance of marketing good music as well as insisting on fair value for fair work got the brands and events organisers used to opening up their budgets a little more for original music across the board, even for acts I did not manage.

I also negotiated a 360-deal with a major label across a five-month period, and travelled extensively to music festivals and conferences. This gave me a lot of perspective and ideas that I wanted to carry home to Singapore’s scene. I presently manage a small Telegram group for gig musos, where I consolidate updates for grants and prevailing safety measures, and am a moderator of a Facebook group for the creative and cultural community that has more than 10,000 members. I also run a Clubhouse discussion on Wednesdays to speak about  issues that impact the creative community in general. One of my first guests was Joanna Dong, so musos, do come through.

It wasn’t a huge character departure to want to create a platform to allow (some) musos to continue working during this time. I’m very lucky to have had people in the scene put their trust in me, from our first iteration as a live-stream, to this new evolution as a VR music festival. I intend to honour that trust.

Caspar Francis is the fellow co-founder of TBTN, and the chief creative officer of Rawspark (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

As for the construction of the digital world, that falls in the hands of Rawspark. Why was Rawspark the right candidate for this mega task?

Rawspark has always been focused on combining cutting-edge storytelling and art with technology to create an immersive brand experience. Balance between technology and taste was super crucial in developing the virtual festival. The company also comprises a closely-knit team of designers, developers, video content creators and music producers who collectively work together under a single unit, which helps in expediting development under huge time constraints. 

Can you tell us more about the technology that’s gone into bringing this concept to life? Why is it effective for an idea like this?

The technology we’re using to create the festival world is Unreal Engine. It’s a super powerful 3D game engine software, popular for developing games like FORTNITE and TEAM FORTRESS.  We’re using a combination of MOCAP (motion capture) and virtual set design to film the musicians – here we have musicians perform in front of a LED wall which projects the ceiling and background surroundings of the world (similar to Disney’s The Mandalorian); the performing subjects are filmed in a standard multi-camera set up that gets edited for large holographic stage screens; simultaneously, we use MOCAP to generate 3D replicas of the performers, which perform in the virtual world as their avatars. A lot of the virtual festival’s real estate, from the stages and partner booths, to the roadways, buildings and foliage, is designed and composited with 3D design software, and then imported into Unreal Engine. The entire Unreal Engine platform is then hosted on a web browser so we can integrate consumer access and e-commerce functions in a single virtual space. 

Loyal patrons of the livehouse circuit will definitely be familiar with Shirlyn + The UnXpected (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

What limitations did the team face in making this event a reality, and how did you overcome them?

This is highly unoriginal, but funding was a huge stumbling block. We remain very grateful for the grant we received. We were locked into grant tranches that were indifferent to our mission to pay our musicians, artists and technicians fairly and within a reasonable period of time, and this really pushed us to go find other sources of revenue by creating things of value that corporate entities would want to get involved with. And we’re still looking, so if you’re keen to partner up, slide into our IG DMs and let’s chat! (No but really, please do.)

Another highly unoriginal limitation is the ever-shifting safe management measures. Both in 2020 and this year, Audrey was biting her nails watching news updates, wondering if we would be able to finish filming in time. We didn’t so much overcome this as much as we squeaked past the deadline in the nick of time – both years, SMM restrictions went into place mere days after we wrapped our shoot.

Another positive trait of TBTN is that it’s managed to win the support of government bodies like MCCY and NYC. Was it tricky getting these entities on board? And what does their endorsement mean for the team?

We remain indebted to our partners in the community who clued us in to the grants dispensed by these bodies, and who spoke highly of us in rooms of opportunity. Joining hands with these entities involved being patient with paperwork and being sympathetic to their role as guardians of public funds – sometimes, they ask for another form or another meeting not to be difficult, but because they have responsibilities as custodians of tax dollars. Everyone gets audited in the end. We want to keep the faith with them for placing their trust (and our tax dollars) in our endeavour, and their involvement has given us extra incentive to be more mindful of the less exciting admin portions of running a festival.

Getting lost is part and parcel of the festival experience too (Credit: Take Back The Nights)

And lastly, the emergence of TBTN is a huge morale booster that’s much needed given the drought within the scene. What wishes do you have for it, and how is TBTN here to help?

Thanks for being so generous with us. We’re torn between wanting to come back for season 2, and wanting season 2 to be made redundant because someone waved a magic wand and summoned ’Rona back to its cave on a distant planet far, far away. If hybrid events truly are meant to stay, we think there will always be a need for a white-label stadium space and interactive VR worlds where events like festivals, conferences, games and performances can take place. Even if Take Back The Nights isn’t curating the programme, we want to enable other members of the community to take their events into the digital realm, so creators can keep creating for audiences who crave interactivity. The old rules stopped applying with the pandemic, so we’re here to create some digital VR/XR space for the community to conquer and rule in this new era.

Take Back The Nights takes place 6pm-11pm on the first Friday of every month: 6 August, 3 September, 1 October and 5 November 2020. Visit its official website or its Instagram and Facebook pages for updates on programme, what you can explore, and how you can get involved or show your support.