Research Trends in Virtual Reality Music Concert Technology: A Systematic Literature Review

Advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have sparked novel avenues of growth in the musical domain. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of VR technology has led to growing interest in VR music concerts as an alternative to traditional live concerts. These virtual settings can provide immersion like attending real concerts for physically distant audiences and performers, and also can offer new creative possibilities. VR music concert research is still in its infancy, and advances in technologies such as multimodal devices are rapidly expanding the diversity of research, requiring a unified understanding of the field. To identify trends in VR music concert technology, we conducted a PRISMA-based systematic literature review covering the period from 2018 to 2023. After a thorough screening process, a total of 27 papers were selected for review. The studies were classified and analyzed based on the research topic (audience, performer, concert venue), interaction type (user-environment, user-user), and hardware used (head-mounted display, additional hardware). Furthermore, we categorized the evaluation metrics into user experience, usability, and performance. Our review contributes to advancing the understanding of recent developments in VR music concert technology, shedding light on the diversification and potential of this emerging field.