A Billie Eilish ‘immersive listening experience’ organized by Spotify and Lightroom. Photo Credit: Spotify
Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR) has announced an investment in Lightroom, which says it specializes in creating “IP-led immersive entertainment experiences.”
New York City-headquartered Reservoir formally disclosed its stake in London-based Lightroom today. Founded in 2022 and billed as a JV between 59 Studio as well as London Theatre Company, Lightroom also counts as an investor Access Industries owner Len Blavatnik.
Now, as the company eyes continued growth – aiming to, among other things, expand its reach from five cities to 12 by 2025’s end – Reservoir is apparently preparing to get in on the immersive-experience action.
“Richard [Slaney, CEO] and the Lightroom team have set a new standard with their exceptional storytelling and proven model for sustainable, replicable, and scalable one-of-a-kind immersive experiences that strongly aligns with our values around creative integrity,” elaborated Reservoir head Golnar Khosrowshahi.
“We see meaningful opportunity in this high-growth vertical, and this investment is an opportunity to enhance the value of our music assets, capitalizing on milestone moments, as well as our evergreen music catalog, to create shows rooted in IP,” Khosrowshahi concluded.
To date, Lightroom has brought shows including David Hockney: Bigger and Closer and The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks to its “flagship” London venue. Specifically in the music world, the business is said to have collaborated with Spotify on Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft album launch and spearheaded Coldplay’s A Film for the Future.
Now, it’ll be interesting to see which immersive experiences the Reservoir tie-up produces first. Furthermore, against the backdrop of rapid-fire catalog plays and a steady stream of capital commitments in the current year, artist-specific experiences are becoming increasingly common.
The latest example is Primary Wave’s Bob Marley Hope Road: An Immersive Celebration, though the likes of Bad Bunny and more are also capitalizing on the trend. Then, under the wider immersive-experience banner in one way or another are Sphere’s shows, avatar concerts (including a forthcoming KISS virtual band), and London’s Elvis Evolution.
Given the aforementioned pile of music-IP investments, including gargantuan plays for the song rights of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Jackson, logic suggests that plenty of additional immersive experiences and adjacent efforts (see UMG’s Patrick Whitesell JV) are in the wings.
To be sure, streaming revenue, physical sales, and traditional sync can only carry decades-old bodies of work so far from a monetization perspective. And without naming names or diving too far into the multifaceted subject, some high-value legacy catalogs aren’t necessarily suitable for contemporary visual media projects.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.