Roblox built the Old Town Road for a Lil Nas X concert
Lil Nas X, the hip hop artist best known for last year's Old Country Road, is going to be delivering "a one-of-a-kind, immersive concert experience built exclusively on Roblox." Players can currently walk around the set for the concert, a prerecorded Q&A will begin playing at 4pm PST on Friday the 13th(!), and then on Saturday at 1pm PST the virtual concert takes place.
Lil Nas X tweeted a teaser for the show, and the schedule is here.
This virtual concert comes complete with virtual merch which you can buy with virtual money, although players will get an 'Old Town Cowboy' hat just for coming along.
This is far from the first virtual concert experience, though no doubt inspired by the most spectactular example thus far: earlier this year, Fortnite's Travis Scott concert turned the artist into some giant virtual god warping around and tossing players into the sky while he sang. Roblox won't be able to offer quite that level of visual pizzaz, but that's not why people play Roblox anyway.
The most striking aspect is that this concert is such a big part of the promotion for Lil Nas X's new single, Holiday. It shows not only the incredible reach of Roblox, but how unremarkable it now is to see the world's biggest selling artists belting out a tune to a crowd of avatars. The question is no longer would you watch an in-game concert, but who wouldn't?
I visited the 'concert experience' early, which you can find here, and it's a simple wild west layout with saloons etcetera, the focal points being a merch stand and a large purple stage with a countdown timer. It was also absolutely packed with players, from pandas to Superman, typing 'LIL NAS X LET'S GOOOO' in chat.
Following Saturday's show, it'll be re-broadcast for Asian players at 10PM PST (2pm Beijing Time), then European players can watch at 9:00AM PST on Sunday (6PM CET).