This month sees the return of Face The Music, two jam-packed days of panel sessions, keynote presentations, networking opportunities, workshops, and master classes, bringing together the best of Australia’s music industry and the opportunity to explore new and wild ideas to help foster and propel the music industry.

One particular wild idea comes from social entrepreneur and virtual reality campaigner Joel De Ross who believes time travel is the key to saving the music industry. With a long history in the entertainment industry as a music producer, DJ, event organiser and record label owner, Joel has developed intimate knowledge of the challenges facing the industry – challenges that he became committed to solving through new technologies. This vision for change led him to discover Virtual Reality and other emerging technology options.

We caught up with Joel to find out what exactly he’s on about and what it could mean for the future of the music industry.

Joel’s Professional & Educational Hstory

“Ran amok at Luther college, Boronia Heights and was expelled from both. Went to Box Hill Senior and got introduced to music production. 10 years in the Psytrance scene as a producer, DJ, promoter and record label owner. Partied too hard. Ended up in rehab. Rose out of the ashes like a pheonix determined to fix the music industry with technology.

Got into Virtual Reality (VR) and helped to foster the local VR community. Currently developing immersive technology solutions for events, festivals and conferences in particular. Was founding member and Vice President of the Australian Virtual Reality Industry Association a position stepped down from to focus on study. I’m currently doing a Master’s of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne Uni.

Spent some time in Silicon Valley. Founder of the Future Music Industry Network, a series of 12 events with a mission to create an entirely new music industry model and the transitional strategy from the one we have to the one we designed.”

What Is Considered ‘Time Travel’?

“Simply being present and observed by people from the past would disrupt the space-time continuum, which may alter the future that you came from dramatically, possibly resulting in the Nazi’s winning the war or you never being born for example. Pretty major OH&S hurdles.

So I describe time travel through the lens of a commercial industry.One that has solved that problem by only sending your vision and hearing through time. To experience and learn from a historically significant moment, returning with new insights and applying it in the present in some meaningful way.

I believe this is the only safe way to travel through time and if that accepted, then I argue that 360 cameras and VR do exactly that now.”

How He Came Across This Theory

[include_post id=”454817″]”Using VR to experience simulations of the past is a fairly common theme amongst the community. 360 video is capturing moments in time exactly as they happened. No editing, no special effects. When you put on that head set your brain is totally convinced that what you are experiencing is real. But until you try it for yourself, it’s very difficult to imagine what I’m talking about so I totally forgive you if you are questioning my sanity right now.

Wouldn’t the content we create now be restricted by the access to science and materials we have today and the therefore not very appealing to future audiences with better technology?

No. Image Recognition technology and Artificial Intelligence will be able to reconstruct any content from the primate formats of today into a compatible one from the future. It’s highly likely we won’t even need VR headsets either. We will be able to create virtual realities from within the mind. These capabilities are less than a decade away.”

How Time Travel = $$$

“I am a festival organiser, using Metavents (the software I’m bringing to market later this year) I can create a simulation or interactive pre visualization of my festival which people from around the world can pay a small amount to experience that content with VR.

This acts a powerful marketing tool, the outcome of these capability is that events can look forward to generating substantial revenue on top of ticket sales months before the event has taken place.

After my event all the photos, videos, audio and stories from the people that attended can live inside the VR event preserving it in time. I can monetize this content and people went can re-live their experience, people who went but missed most of what was on offer, can see everything they missed.

Those who missed the event entirely can get a very close approximation of having physically been there. Even if you event was free, you can still generate millions through VR content. And that revenue stream never switches of. And every act that was booked for the show can get a cut of that revenue.”

Response To The Time Travel Theory

“The industry is a buzz with the potential and festival season 2015-2016 in Australia will be the birthplace of a brand new music industry. So we a literally going to be the epicentre of the greatest revolution in music history and I’ll make sure that journey is archived. Preserved in time for future generations to experience immersively.”

Musicians Who Have Used Virtual Reality Well

Paul McCartney, Bjork, Beck, U2, Squarepusher, Just to name a few. Many EDM festivals are already being captured in 360 now as well.

All the major tech players are in the VR space. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, GoPro, Sony. The commercial headsets are coming to market this summer, so expect VR to explode over the next 12 months with music and events being one of the biggest driving forces of mass adoption.

How Close Is This ‘Time Travel’ Theory?

“In the way I describe, through VR, it’s already here. It will just take a few months to build the infrastructure for the industry to materialise. Additionally, because this is all happening in our present, we won’t value the content we capture for years, maybe even decades. I have already starting putting things in place for a time travel industry association.”

Joel will be speaking as part of Face The Music 2015, details at www.facethemusic.org.au