Pop star Ariana Grande steps into the metaverse of Epic Games’ Fortnite for her Rift Tour of gamified digital concert events and experiential add-ons
From her 2014 album My Everything to her 2020 launch Positions, Ariana Grande is not any stranger to evolution and experimentation to music movies. So it is smart that Epic Games’s digital world of Fortnite serves because the venue for Grande’s Rift Tour.
Epic Games had us guessing for a few week about who their “record-breaking superstar” can be however on August 1. The interactive leisure firm revealed it could be the 28-year-old pop star whose standard singles embody ‘Bang Bang’ with Jessie J and Nicki Minaj, ‘God Is A Woman’ and ‘Side To Side’ with Nicki Minaj.
Following its launch in 2018, battle royale recreation Fortnite skilled a meteoric rise to fame making it Epic Games’ prime creation, raking in additional than US$9 billion in its first two years and CEO Tim Sweeney lately acknowledged it grossed US$5.1 billion in 2020.
Fortnite has partnered with a few of the music trade’s greats resembling standard DJ Marshmello whose exhibits raked in 10 million folks in February 2019. Rapper Travis Scott’s live performance sequence garnered greater than 12 million folks in April 2020. EDM artiste Kaskade additionally had a profitable in-game live performance in March 2021. Though not a live performance, Indian rapper and composer, Raftaar, was featured in Fortnite marketing campaign ‘Bhangra Boogie Cup’ which is an in-game competitors that came about in December 2020.
Meanwhile, Post Malone — who has been open about his disdain for Fortnite — confirmed his love for Pokémon on the franchise’s P25 Music digital live performance live-streamed on Pokémon’s YouTube and Twitch accounts and official web site for the franchise’s twenty fifth anniversary.
About the exhibits
The live performance sequence, comprising 5 exhibits, kicks off on August 6 at 3.30 am IST, and exhibits will run by way of until August 8.
Show prep
- If you might be tuning in, Epic Games encourages folks to load up Fortnite about an hour earlier than your chosen showtime, so you’ve a while to discover the Rift Tour Playlist that goes stay half-hour forward of every present. This is to make sure everyone seems to be accommodated and most capability just isn’t reached. Though the Rift Tour dates usually are not region-locked, the instances have been chosen to verify everybody has an opportunity to attend.
Going by the looks of an enormous hammer within the Rift Tour teaser, we are able to anticipate performances for singles resembling ‘God Is A Woman’ of which the music video sees Grande sitting atop Earth and travelling by way of the universe with an enormous mallet. Such scenes can be enjoyable to see recreated in Fortnite graphics.
Another mind-bending music video of Grande’s that may doubtlessly make an awesome Fortnite present is ‘no tears left to cry’ from her 2018 album Sweetener. The video is paying homage to Inception and options loads of CG. Other superb singles for the tour embody her newest single ‘POV’ in addition to ‘7 rings’, ‘34 + 35’ and ‘Bang Bang.’
However, the tour won’t function solely music exhibits. Epic Games will even be promoting a pores and skin primarily based on the musician as a part of its Icon Series, which options real-world celebrities resembling NBA Hall-of-Famer LeBron James and YouTube streamer Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins. Grande’s pores and skin will go on sale August 4 at 5.30 am IST; so, sure, you possibly can present as much as Grande’s live performance dressed because the pop star herself, and you will get a preview of the pores and skin and a backpack primarily based on her pet pig, Piggy Smallz, which she adopted together with her now-former fiancé Pete Davidson.
