The 18th edition of London Mela, the U.K. festival of South Asian culture, will be held in a virtual-reality venue created by the same team that brought you the successful Lost Horizon Festival this past July.
As with Lost Horizon, which was seen by four million people in 100 countries, Melatopia viewers will be able to experience live artists, DJs and dance performances in a virtual world created especially for the event, and on a range of platforms, including mobile devices, desktop computers and VR headsets.
There are three main ways to take part in the Melatopia experience:
1. Sign up for a Twitch TV account and get ready to experience all the incredible Melatopia festival performers. Here’s the channel.
2. Follow the Melatopia festival on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube and stream the whole event there! You could even start a watch party!
3. If you own a Windows PC, you can download the Sansar client software and experience our virtual reality Mela. Create an avatar and join in the festivities! You can experience Sansar on your computer desktop or in your virtual reality headset (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or Valve Index). You can download Sansar from their website, or from Steam. Here’s a somewhat outdated but still useful step-by-step guide for getting started in Sansar for newbies.
Click here to get your free tickets to the event, and check the official Melatopia website for concert details, performer lineups, and news. (Please note all times on the website are given in London, Greenwich Mean Time/GMT, so be sure to convert to your local time zone!)
The official press release follows. See you there!
Event: Melatopia
Dates: Saturday 07 & Sunday 08 November 2020
Times: 15:00 – 03:00 (3PM to 3AM) GMT
Venue: www.londonmela.org the gateway to MELATOPIA within Sansar the global VR leader in live events
Melatopia streams live on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube
The 18th edition of South Asian culture-fest, London Mela will be held online and virtually for the first time ever on 7-8 November 2020. Founders Ajay Chhabra and Julian Rudd reinvent the much-loved festival as a digital and virtual reality event; Melatopia, featuring South Asian music, dance, food, and culture for a one-of-a-kind festival experience within an immersive VR experience in Sansar.
Usually performed at the festival’s home in Southall Park, London Mela organisers have embraced the digital realm with the first Virtual Reality Mela ever staged, to keep everyone safe during COVID 19.
The award-winning event’s partners Nutkhut, Mela Partnership and Remarkable Productions join forces with Shangri-La’s Lost Horizon Festival to create a new online virtual reality venue, MELATOPIA, which is built using Sansar, Wookey Technologies’cutting-edge, photorealistic platform for virtual live events and can be experienced on PC, VR or mobile (iOS), plus will be streamed live on Twitch and across social media.
Audiences will be able to experience live artists, dance performances and DJs in an extraordinary VR online space specially created for the Mela. Whether viewed on a smartphone, tablet, laptop or wearing VR glasses, audiences will be able to engage with the performances and each other in new and innovative ways. Viewers are encouraged to book 7/8 November out in their diaries and invite friends and family to an online watch party. COVID 19 has stopped audiences visiting the Mela in London, so the London Mela will come to them wherever they are in our great city and wherever they are in the world.
The London Mela is best known for its adventurous programming and genre-crossing collaborations from an incredible mix of household names and contemporary artists. This year will be no different with US/Indian rapper The Raja Kumari headlining the show. In support we have an incredible collaboration between Juggy D and Pandit Ram Sahai Sangeet Vidhyalaya (PRSSV), 5 Tabla players from Singh Sabha Southall Education Centre in Southall.
Pop sensation and BBC Future Music Artist Celina Sharma features as well as Roma Sagar and Rio Jai. Panjabi Hit Squad promise to get the audience jumping around their front rooms with a barnstorming set. No Mela is complete without qawwali and the Mela is proud to present Chand Ali Khan, one of the UK’s most exciting qawwali talents, complete with 7-piece live band. Rounding of this first announcement, London Mela presents the legendary Panjabi MC, producer of the seminal Mundian To Bach Ke, possibly the greatest crossover dance tune from the South Asian diaspora.
All artists featured in Melatopia will be recorded exclusively for the event.
