Hi Anthem Awards judges, this is the case for Meta Festival 2022

After a successful Berlin-based, hybrid first edition in 2021, we took our Meta Festival a step further in 2022 by organising the world’s first 24-hour event in the metaverse, across three time zones in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas. 12,500+ people registered, and more than 6,500 attendees from 109 countries – that’s a coverage of 55% of the whole world – gathered in the highly immersive Metapolis metaverse world on June 28th to hear from 123 leading web3 innovators, brand marketers, futurists and technologists. Several hundred others tuned in to live streams on LinkedIn, Twitter, Twitch, and Youtube to take a peek into the metaverse.

A look back

In 2021, after more than a year of sitting at home and mostly meeting other people in webinars due to the ongoing pandemic, we decided that the ‘new normal’ just wasn’t good enough. We reinvented virtual events by founding Meta Festival – a first of its kind festival experience taking place in ‘Metapolis’, a tailored virtual world realised by our partner JOURNEE – The Metaverse Company™ on Unreal Engine. Everyone’s talking about the metaverse but, according to our research, only 16% of people understand what it is. We wanted to change that and provide an accessible, free, and secure playground where people from all over the world could get together to connect, learn and party.

Same tech excellence. But bigger and better.

After having realised immersive web3 experiences and NFT projects for clients such as H&Mbeyond, Motorsport Games and The Drone Racing League, we wanted to take our Meta Festival to the next level and make it even bigger and better in 2022.

We once again partnered with JOURNEE – The Metaverse Company™ to bring Metapolis back to life. While the landscape was stylised differently from the first version, the virtual world once again proved to be an example of the limitless possibilities the metaverse offers, showcasing spectacular 3D visualisations in ray traced rendering quality.

All that attendees needed to access Metapolis was a device and an internet connection. Apart from that, the event was completely free. Thanks to a collaboration with Ready Player Me, each visitor had the opportunity to express themselves by creating their own custom avatar with which they could dance and move, as well as walk or even fly through Metapolis. An integrated chat allowed them to communicate with each other and meet fellow web3 enthusiasts from all around the world.

Content that educates

Once they were inside Metapolis, attendees were free to explore five unique stages dedicated to Web3, Pop Culture, Immersive Experiences, Diehard Tech, and the Betterverse. The latter stage focused on sharing opinions from thought leaders on how we can evolve web3 into a sustainable, equitable, and safe environment for all and generally build a better internet.

Speakers on the five stages included experts from Netflix, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and more. Each of the stages had its own theme and several screens that attendees could approach with their avatars to tune into the talks.

A programme for multiple time zones

In addition to these five stages of ongoing sessions, there was a Main Stage which featured live programming tailored to each region, taking place between 2pm – 5pm local time in Singapore, Amsterdam and New York. On the Main Stage, visitors got to hear from top-notch speakers such as web3 experts Cathy Hackl, Paula Kilgariff, Diego Borgo and Gmoney, as well as leaders from brands across industries, including Google Cloud, Ready Player Me, The Volkswagen Group, H&Mbeyond, HAPE, The Fabricant, Coca Cola, WIRED, disguise, Burberry, Heineken, Salesforce, DRESSX, Headspace, Decentraland, Epic Games, Algorand, PwC UK, Campaign, Forrester, and more.

Cocktails, karaoke & NFTs

Aside from being packed with information and inspiration, our Meta Festival also featured a Playground area with fun workshops (e.g. yodeling), karaoke, live magic, cocktail classes and yoga that encouraged attendees to walk around the grounds and experience a true festival feeling. For those visitors who craved after-party-vibes, there were even live DJ sets in the so-called ‘boiler room’…

Additionally, since NFTs are the topic of the moment, we of course also hosted an NFT workshop during Meta Festival to bring this trend closer to the people. Furthermore, attendees could browse an NFT Gallery inside of Metapolis to purchase a number of affordable custom NFTs created specially for the event.

Livestreams and excellent engagement rates

Although Metapolis was freely accessible for anybody that registered for Meta Festival, we wanted to also give less tech-savvy audiences the chance to experience our experts and speakers. Therefore, we streamed the live talks happening on the Main Stage to LinkedIn, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube, allowing us to ensure that everyone could enjoy the programme.

Dedicated Meta Festival social channels kept registrants engaged before, during and after the event. Over 1,000 design assets were created that were shared organically by both our speakers, and on our organic and paid official channels on Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube. The social campaign gained 7.9 million impressions, and spurred excellent engagement rates, with people all over the world sharing and liking.

A dedicated team behind the scenes

Even though Meta Festival 2022 was a fully immersive event, it took a big and committed IRL crew that worked 24h around the clock to make it all happen.

We gathered our hosts for all three time zones in Amsterdam, where we had set up a studio with a greenscreen for the live moderations. An external production team worked hard to guarantee a smooth experience for the attendees.

At the same time, a dedicated team of Depsters managed the communication with the visitors and made sure that all speakers were briefed and ready for their panels.

Needless to say, since we are a climate neutral certified company, all carbon emissions from the event will be off set.

See you all next year!

Meta Festival 2022 was a big evolution from 2021’s Berlin-based hybrid edition. And, from sponsorship opportunities to VR headset capability, there’s only more we can accomplish from here. We’re excited and hungry for Meta Festival 2023, because who knows what next year will bring… Stay tuned!