Women In MusicTech #4: Anne McKinnon, Ristband Cofounder

Deep tech journalist, editor, curator and event host, Anne McKinnon is also the co-founder of Ristband, a digital concert platform that allows music shows to happen simultaneously in the real world and the online one. Previously known as Overview Ark, Ristband doesn't aim at "disrupting the music industry", the startup wants to make virtual concerts easily accessible to all artists and their fans. Today, she'll be our guide to the metaverse.

My background is in tech journalism. I traveled the world speaking with tech executives, bootstrapped startups, developers, creatives and musicians. I learned from a wide range of perspectives what was happening in this space, and where it might be going. Very quickly, I was drawn to the intersection between music and technology, fascinated by the live component of performance and its relationship with technology. 

It seems like my career in this space really began when I arrived in Paris in 2017 to cover the city-wide all night arts festival Nuit Blanche. I discovered a live concert using augmented and virtual reality performed by the band Miro Shot- who released their debut album on Believe. 
I was introduced to Believe’s team and brought onboard as a tech consultant, looking at the potential of these virtual concerts in the music industry. 

It was my first step into the music industry. I was inspired by the band’s work, learned a lot about how music views tech and how tech views music. It was pre-pandemic, and this topic was very nascent, but this experiment led me to where I am today.
 

Music and tech are definitely a bit of an old boy’s club. A lot of the mentors I’ve had through accelerators and programs with my company are men because the industry has been very male dominated. It’s more challenging to find women mentors in lead roles. But I think that music is becoming more inclusive and tech more diverse. We’re living in an exciting time. Now is a great time for women to enter the industry and apply for executive level roles. For instance, there’s a huge push right now in industry events to have more female speakers to have a better parity in terms of attendees.

My advice to women entering these industries is to pursue what you are passionate about, surround yourself with positive people and supportive mentors, and never hesitate to reach out to other women in the field, regardless of company or role for advice or networking. There’s a lot of support out there. The most important thing is to continue conversations and initiatives around diversity. 

The metaverse is set out to be everything that the Internet promised to be. Open networks, global communities, creative and economic freedom, equality. If you imagine the metaverse as an extension of the Internet, virtual worlds can be compared to web pages with various purposes and experiences, and websites can be compared to metaverses that have various creators and communities.

In terms of Ristband, you can think of us as a portal to the metaverse for the music industry. You can imagine us in the same way as a music festival, but online like a game. You can create an avatar and walk around, see acts you know or discover new music by exploring the place. Unlike a livestream, what’s important here is that you experience things: you can go to the front of the stage, talk to your friends, socialize with other people, buy a shirt, you can even go on quests. It should really be an adventure you live in real time.

For fans, it’s a chance for them to see an artist they might not be able to see at a physical show. For artists, they can reach a wider audience, connect with more fans, and sell more tickets. For A&R it can mean discovering new artists, like they did going to clubs back in the day, but also with granular data insights. For managers and booking agents, it’s about not being limited to a single geographic area or just a few venues. 

We’re building a digital twin of the music industry and the live music circuit. It’s more than a livestream, and more than a game. None of this will replace live music. The live show will always be the peak experience. Technology won’t change that. The idea is to bring all the exciting things about live performance and live events and combine it with the power of game engines.

We’re really just setting the foundations of the metaverse and no one knows exactly what it’s going to look like, and the technology is also evolving very rapidly. But by going in and doing lots of these types of events we’re figuring out what works and what doesn’t. 

Absolutely! Digital habits have changed in 2020. During COVID, everyone has become a digital native. Musicians are looking for new ways to reach their audiences and vice-versa. As social platforms, games created a new opportunity for a new type of music experience, and we have seen games and music intersecting more and more. Just as we’re defining what the metaverse is, we’re also defining what virtual concerts are.

They must be live, a social experience more engaging than throwing emojis and clicking around to different views on a screen. Otherwise, it’s just a livestream and that’s something different. The idea of what a virtual concert should be is already evolving: in the game Fortnite, we went from having EDM artist Marshmello  “mixing” on a virtual stage to a fully scripted event with interactive cinematic scenes for Ariana Grande.

Speaking of Ariana Grande, her Fortnite tour was really interesting to learn about what was in it for Epic, the creator of Fortnite, and what was in it for the artist. Ariana has an incredibly dedicated fanbase of younger girls who were attracted to Fortnite for the concert. On the other hand, Fortnite’s audience is primarily male between the ages of 18 and 34. For Epic, it’s a way to attract a new audience to Fortnite, and for Grande a way to reach new fans, and new revenue streams.  

For artists, the metaverse will offer more opportunities to be discovered, more venues to perform in, new ways to monetize their work through digital assets and virtual ticket sales, and the ability to reach and deeply engage with a global fan base on a more personal level. 

Suddenly, there are 2.8 billion gamers in the world who have become potential virtual concert goers. Right now, music fans and gamers alike are ready for virtual concerts, but what’s holding artists and audiences back is the lack of a platform designed for this. 

The existing platforms and production methods create a lot of friction in terms of user experience, accessibility, and creative freedom. Virtual concerts can be complicated to access, take months to produce, a team of hundreds to deliver, and are primarily limited to big acts due to prohibitive costs. 

On the other hand, there’s an entire generation of artists and industry growing up with the metaverse. It’s an incredibly exciting time, and whoever gets this next bit right is going to win big. 
 

As someone who goes into virtual worlds all the time, I still feel like there's a long way to go, especially for female avatars. 

Last fall we did a really interesting exercise with our interns where they had to go into these virtual worlds using female avatars and see what it was like from body customization to clothing, and then interactions with others on the platform. We found there weren't a lot of options in terms of body sizes. You’ll see a lot of voluptuous or anime-like avatars, and this isn’t something everyone is comfortable with. It sexualizes women and doesn't help with inclusivity.  

But there’s a lot of conversation now on this issue. Games are trying to attract more girls because there's a massive market opportunity there, and there are more women getting into coding which will make a difference in the way games are made, creating better representation and more positive spaces. 

There’s a lot that can be done around this, especially to protect younger audiences. In our events, we worked with host DJ Tobi Lynn, who welcomed people arriving in the world, gave shout outs, complimented on style and through this positive feedback, created a really fun and safe event atmosphere.

The metaverse is definitely the next iteration of the internet. It’s going to connect us in new ways as an evolution of the networking that it was originally created for. 

Science fiction author Neil Stephenson is often credited with coming up with the term metaverse in his book Snow Crash in 1992, and today, I think artists are the best equipped to pioneer in this space. They can take something and make it beautiful. It’s when technology is in the hands of the artists that we see the most exciting future. So, it's very important that we continue to have these conversations between arts, music and tech, and also that we continue to have more diversity in music and tech industries to create a future that is meaningful and equally representative. 
 

Update 1/12/22: This article has been edited to reflect the company's name change from Overview Ark to Ristband.