5G Festival - Re-inventing live collaborative performances

Abstract

The 5G Festival is the world's first live immersive hybrid concert, creating an exciting new business model for music professionals, live venues and artists. Exploiting the benefits of 5G technology, such as enhanced mobile broadband and low latency, artists were able to collaborate remotely, from venues 60 miles apart, while audience were able to experience a live event with enhanced immersive experiences. Artists listening to immersive audio were more tolerant to the affects of latency when compared to stereo, which allows for an increase in the distance achievable between the collaborators. During the live performance more than 200 audio channels and 20 video streams were transferred through the three interconnected venues, providing a professional experience to artists and audience alike. This was possible through intelligent network management and use of multicast audio over IP (AoIP) protocols such as AES67/ST2110-30. Finally, a service platform was developed and optimised in relation to latency over the 5G networks resulting in a near ‘real-time’ user experience including additional features such as bit rate optimisation and automatic network reconnection to improve stability and expandable interfaces for live mixing and visual projections.