Currently there are six acts up for nomination.
The MTV music awards are coming and a new category has been added to the super popular awards ceremony. In another example of the growing interest in the metaverse the new category of “Best Metaverse Performance” has been introduced to allow artists that have performed in the metaverse to compete for the coveted award.
MTV created the awards show back in 1984 and since then major artists have been given the award such as Madonna, Kanye West, The Weeknd, Nirvana,Lil Nas X, Justin Bieber, BTS, and more. The awards ceremony has many categories including “Song Of The Year”, “Artist Of The Year”, and “Video Of The Year.”
The past few years have seen artists branch out beyond the television and onto new platforms for their concerts. Travis Scott had a very successful concert in the video game world created by Fortnite as did Ariana Grande. Justin Bieber did his show on the WAVE metaverse, beloved Korean boy band BTS hit the scene in Minecraft , Charli XCX and Twenty One Pilots hit Roblox, and Korean Superstar Girl Group BLACKPINK hit The Virtual PUBG. These new metaverse concerts have shown that web3 can be a viable platform for artists to reach more of their fans.
With that knowledge MTV has created the new category of “Best Metaverse Performance” with those previously mentioned artists as candidates for the coveted new prize.
The show also introduced a metaverse experience this past Aug. 12 on Roblox which will last until Sept.3, the gaming platform also has two performances up for nomination. Roblox is full of pop culture references and events including concerts, festivals,dance festivals and other social gatherings.
The views of the VMAs have been declining for the past few years as more youth are focused on quick consumption of information such as TikTok and Instagram. Platforms such as the metaverse offer a new way for artists and shows like the VMA to reach today’s youth.
Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert brought an audience of 27.7 million users with 12.3 being concurrent grossing the artist $20 million. Ariana Grande’s concert was not able to pull those numbers however. Justin Bieber’s concert on WAVE was able to secure 10.7 million viewers and was a surprise concert that showed the validity of Metaverse concerts