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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Concerts add video arcade

By Mike Snider
USA Today

Shelley Batteau, left, and Laura Reynolds try the optional karaoke feature on Microsoft's Xbox game console at the Lollapalooza festival in Bristow, Va. This year's road show includes a tent arcade.

USA Today

Video games are helping pump up the volume at summer music festivals.

The mixture is most prevalent at the Lollapalooza tour, which wraps up next week. More than a dozen bands will perform, including Audioslave and Incubus.

Concertgoers can stroll through a midway of diversions — a batting cage, tattoo and piercing truck, clothing booths hawking puka-shell necklaces and Bob Marley T-shirts, and a Save the Seals counter.

Amid the clamor looms an inflatable dome stuffed with Xbox game machines, laptop PCs and giant flat-panel displays. Microsoft is the tour's top sponsor, and an arcade of its games fills the air-conditioned interior.

The GameRiot tent makes the scene "more festive. It brings different entertainment aspects to the show," said J.R. Lockwood, 18, of Boyce, Va. He and Jenni Morgan, 18, of Berryville, Va., were playing Outlaw Volleyball at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Va., about 30 miles west of Washington, D.C. "It was really cool," said Morgan, who rarely plays games.

Sponsorship grows

Game makers are sponsoring many major music festivals:

  • Market leader Sony is bringing its PlayStation2 18-wheeler — with room for 50 players at a time — to many of the stops on Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest tour, which includes Korn and Marilyn Manson and runs through Aug. 28.
  • Nintendo has started its own festival, the Nintendo Fusion tour, with Evanescence and other emerging bands including Cold, through Sept. 18.

In the past, a solid lineup of musical acts could draw a large crowd. But in the current economic climate — with tight radio airplay, choosier ticket buyers and declining CD sales — the music industry sees teaming with video game companies as a way to hedge its bets.

The game industry, meanwhile, is on target for another record-setting year, one that could match the $12 billion music industry.

And game companies are fueled by the support of teens and young adults, the market courted by the music industry. Nearly two of five of the most dedicated game players are under 18 years old; another 40 percent are between 18 and 35.

"They like to play games, listen to music and hang out," said Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan.

Music and video games have been partners for years. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, who played in the first Lollapalooza in 1991, began creating music for games such as Quake in 1996. He's working on the soundtrack for the highly anticipated Doom III.

Music crosses over

There's so much music in top-selling game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City — including songs such as Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon" and Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight" — that Sony Music released seven separate CDs of music from the game. And Fusion tour headliner Evanescence has a song ("Going Under") in Atari's Enter the Matrix game.

Much of the synergy can be attributed to Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, who founded Lollapalooza. "We wanted to create a brand-new ethos in attending festivals," he said. "The idea of just a concert was last millennium. This millennium is about technology and interactivity when you come to a festival."

Verizon adds a wireless aspect to the tour. Before the show, attendees can sign up to get text messages on their cell phones to alert them to trivia contests and event news. Winners get ticket upgrades and backstage passes.

"We wanted to develop the idea of computing and interacting so you are not hunched over your chair by yourself," Farrell said.