Rock Band Incubus Creates Multimedia Event to Connect with Fans

From 从Facebook到Twitter，从博客到Kickstarter， the internet has given music artists no shortage of engagement tools to connect with their fans, 但同样的工具也可以让粉丝保持虚拟的距离, with higher levels of engagement limited to the high-ticket VIP deals that garner a hurried meet-and-greet backstage. Multiplatinum rock band Incubus decided to ratchet that kind of connection up more than a few levels. For the week leading up to the release of its first new studio album in 5 years, the band and its crew turned a warehouse space in Los Angeles into a high-tech agora, where hundreds of aficionados chosen from its fan clubs converged to meet the band members, 看他们排练和表演, participate with them on art projects using six large white canvases placed in the room and on instrument clinics, 和他们的英雄来个长时间的厮混. Using a range of streaming and internet platforms and technologies, Incubus was able to project that experience to an estimated 2 million additional fans around the world, 使Incubus HQ Live成为多方面的多媒体体验.

What director 马克·斯卡帕 describes as a “real-time documentary and participatory media event” had its roots in an otherwise quotidian encounter between Incubus lead singer Brandon Boyd and band manager Steve Rennie at Boyd’s girlfriend’s retail boutique in Venice, Calif. They realized that the constant circulation of people and ideas through the shop was the perfect metaphor for reconnecting the band to its audience: a stage for a web broadcast that would allow hundreds of fans to be there live and be joined by hundreds of thousands more via the internet, all interacting via live streaming media and Facebook back-and-forths. 他们在洛杉矶地区寻找场地, 找到一个4,拉布雷亚大道上500平方英尺的建筑外壳, part of a new retail and restaurant development whose developer was, 偶然发现的, 魔鬼迷. They rented the space for 6 weeks, spending the first 3 weeks rehearsing for the upcoming U.S. 为新专辑做宣传，如果不是现在，那将是何时?, even as the front of the space was built out to engage attendees with things such as hanging six huge canvases that fans could paint or draw 沙发和地毯的摆放，营造出一种阁楼般的氛围.

马克·斯卡帕 During the week of Incubus HQ Live, which started on June 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day the space saw an ebb and flow over the course of the day of between 200 and 300 fans who had signed up for a 1-hour slot via the band’s website. Each of them entered a day-long raffle to be picked to return for that night’s performance. 在白天, 他们可以一起出去玩, 跟乐手和工作人员谈谈, 询问有关乐器和装备的问题, 也许还会买一两件t恤. (Rennie says that while the retail metaphor was purely conceptual, 它们的售价仍在24美元左右,在6天的时间里，他卖出了价值5000美元的商品.)从下午3点开始.m. to 5 p.m. the band rehearsed privately, and 100 or so raffle winners were let back in after 6 p.m. 现场演出从晚上七点半开始.m. 直到晚上9点左右.m.

“太不可思议了——歌迷们都围着乐队坐着, 离布兰登只有三英尺,雷尼回忆道. “这是一种你永远得不到的体验.”

三流

But translating that intimacy and that constant engagement would be the challenge for the web broadcast. The band partnered with Livestream to produce streaming broadcasts of the event all week long, after a small club gig in Berlin several months earlier that served as a practice run for the larger event. 乐队雇佣了雷尼的斯卡帕 worked with once before for a live webcast per- formance by Celine Dion. Scarpa, who seems to like technology marathons — his credits include a 72-hour live participatory online broadcast for the 2010 GRAMMY Awards and 64 hours streaming from Woodstock 99 — sought to balance interaction between the band and the fans in attendance with some structure—the guitar clinics, 表演, 正在进行的艺术品, 安排演出来记录乐队的历史, starting with its first record from 1998 and culminating in a performance of 如果不是现在，那将是何时? on the final night — and flexibility that would allow a narrative to emerge spontaneously, combined with the mandate to take all of these various conversations online in a way that also engaged the wider virtual audience.

“我们希望它具有沉浸感, 而不仅仅是随意打开摄像头,斯卡帕解释道. “Some things were planned out ahead of time; we had a run of show. But other things — [the band] had guest artists stop by and join them, 例如，他们只是没有告诉我们. 所以我们必须时刻准备好应对一切.”

他们选择的组织形式是独一无二的. 使用新LP的标题作为部门标题, three channels were created and served to help parse what would become an enormous amount of content. 通道1, 被称为“如果不是”,是一种“纪实体验”,斯卡帕说 — a single Teradek wireless camera and microphone rig would roam the space all day long, 与与会者、乐队和工作人员互动. “摄像机成了广播中的一个角色, 和孩子们交谈, 观察发生了什么,斯卡帕说. Other documentary channel cameras were a Sony PMW-F3 Cinealta digital camera, two Sony XDCAM PDWF 800 cameras used to capture rehearsals and live performances, 一台索尼HXR-MC1高清“口红”相机，聚焦于架子鼓, 以及几台GoPro可穿戴相机. The live content was inter- spersed with archival footage of performances and personal moments that had been assembled from an array of sources on formats ranging from Beta SP to VHS to 3/4" tape, 还有房间周围的监控摄像头, 都是由斯卡帕划破的一条线. It was also the channel dedicated to the streaming of each evening’s live performance, MTV也从中截取了一整天的素材.

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