CCB Magazine

The Investors Lab 2021 is coming to an end. We take a look back and present this year's companies. In Part 1 we talked to Harmke Heezen from Live from The Other Room, the first XR concert venue in which musicians perform in volumetric video and live streamed to audiences worldwide. 
 

Kreativ Kultur Berlin: Hi Harmke, please introduce yourself briefly. Who are you?

Harmke:I'm Harmke from Live from The Other Room. We are a boutique XR concert venue in which musicians perform in volumetric video, live streamed to audiences worldwide. Fans can book tickets to live shows in virtual reality, alone or with friends. The team consists of the award-winning creatives of the studio High Road Stories and the agency Radar Media, bringing together the artistic and technical abilities to create great XR experiences, plus a long-standing network in the music industry. It worked together successfully before on the VR experience Fantaventura with DIE FANTASTISCHEN VIER, which paved the way for the next logical step in connecting musical performance and XR.

Kreativ Kultur Berlin:What do you expect from an investment in your company? And what steps do you want to take afterwards?

Harmke:With an investment in our company we want to develop our platform to perfection and produce a first series of concerts. After the development phase, the venue should run like a physical music venue as we know it.

Kreativ Kultur Berlin:What financing strategy are you pursuing or what financing channels have you used so far to build your business?

Harmke:We aim to create a business model that runs like a physical concert venue, as it is common in the music industry. For the development phase the project receives support from the BMWi (Federal Ministry for Economical Affairs and Climate Action) in the ‘Innovationsprogramm für Geschäftsmodelle und Pionierlösungen’ (IGP).

From the Investors Lab Berlin we learned how to present our project in a way that highlights our unique strengths in a language that investors can work with. We hope to connect with partners who have a heart for music like we do

Kreativ Kultur Berlin:What did you learn from this year's Investors Lab Berlin? Where and how do you see your future?

Harmke:In our work, we always try to show that digital media and real, authentic creativity are not mutually exclusive. From the Investors Lab Berlin we learned how to present our project in a way that highlights our unique strengths in a language that investors can work with. We hope to connect with partners who have a heart for music like we do, to make this new kind of experience accessible to everyone within the next few years.

Kreativ Kultur Berlin:Why should investors invest in your company?

Harmke:XR has been around for a while and will continue to develop and transform into radically new shapes in the coming years (see Facebook’s metaverse plans). With Live from The Other Room, investors will be at the forefront of the technology, but with the interests of real musicians and artists as the core value.

Kreativ Kultur Berlin:Last question: How do you build a business like yours? What obstacles do you have to overcome? 

Harmke:Our service is different from conventional concert operators, since our focus is on a distinctive artistic approach that is created together with the artist, resulting in a completely new product. Since the majority of the Persona Rights IP are currently held by the artists, we as master owners can apply appropriate distribution keys that directly benefit them. At the moment, we'd like to see more consumers owning hardware, and the infrastructure for fast data transfer is not fully in place yet, but we see that this will change rapidly within the next 24 months, making our concept ready for the mass market.