Earlier this month, Arena One and AMC Theatres launched a joint project to bring live concerts to any of more than 300 AMC screens across America.
The idea is not new—some prestigious opera and theatre companies have been livestreaming to select movie theatres for a while. But the new partnership aims to create a fan experience comparable to being in the room. In fact, in some respects, Arena One expects to improve on that experience, offering premium sound and offering a front-row seat that also enables the artist to see the fans up close. For designers working on these concerts, a custom performance studio (the first one has been built at Rock Lititz) gives access to better gear than is available at many second- and third-tier venues on the concert circuit. There is no audience in the studio where the artist performs, however, the artist will have real-time sound and video access to the fans in remote locations, bringing them closer than they would be in the cheap seats in many venues.
The launch of Arena One's partnership with AMC comes as a number of large tours across the US have been cancelled and both the industry and ticket buyers are assessing the cost of concerts. Arena One is not attempting to replace the once-in-a-lifetime concert experience, but its mission seems to be to offer an affordable live experience in towns and cities that may not typically be on the tour circuit for many artists. On the face of it, this initiative does not seem to undermine small music venues, which are already struggling in America. According to the National Independent Venues Association report on The State of Live, 64% of small stages are not consistently profitable. Arena One uncouples live music from traditional ticketing sources, which is good news for audiences, but it also offers artists the opportunity to reach, track, and nurture audiences around the country, increasing the likelihood of including those spots on a live tour.
Rohit Kapoor is a creative director and production designer known for both immersive fan experiences and large-scale spectacles. He is the founder and chief creative officer of Arena One. Kapoor has worked as a production designer for some of the biggest global artists, including Mariah Carey, but also cut his teeth off-off-off-Broadway, giving him a wide perspective on the economics of entertainment and an insight into diverse fan experiences.
Kapoor spoke to Live Design as we take a deep dive into what audiences and professionals can expect from this new partnership.
Live Design: You've described yourself as "OG theater kid" to corporate "experiential design sellout" can you talk a little bit about the path that led you to Arena One and this approach to live concerts?
Rohit Kapoor: I grew up in what I’d describe as a “loosely traditional” Indian family, meaning my parents always encouraged me to do what I loved – as a hobby. They also set high expectations that I would become a doctor or an engineer like all Indian sons are supposed to be. When I was looking at colleges, I distinctly remember my dad saying, “You can’t major in Drama Club.” As I grew up in Myanmar, my mother was a singer and musician, and I think they both knew that I had that spark in my eye; they knew I loved performing, I loved designing, I loved art and creative work more than anything else, and eventually this would be my path. But they vehemently resisted it as a career choice.
I went to college under the guise of being pre-med, which is hysterical to think about now. After one chemistry class and one calculus class I never went back to anything related to medicine and dove deep into my love for the arts. It was a rough start because it's hard to do something you love when trying to keep it a secret, while maintaining the façade that you're doing something totally different. It really wears on you, so eventually I dropped out of college, decided to pack it up, and take the leap and move to New York City. I spent years in New York designing shows in every off-off-off Broadway Theater you could think of, doing everything from designing the production to painting stage floors to building scenery to technical directing and so on, and then started doing some regional shows. I learned so much and developed relationships with people who also grew to impressive career heights, and who I still collaborate with today.
But, at the end of the day, New York is a hard place to do only what you love and still pay the bills. So in my mind I “sold out”, applying my skills to the corporate world. I guess the reality is you can never stay away from something you love for too long, so right before the pandemic I started thinking about going back to music and entertainment, and made it happen.
LD: What are some of the formative training experiences that have helped you in this industry?
RK: Great teachers did it for me. I was really fortunate starting from early high school to be in a program where the people who worked on our shows in school were also professionals in the community both in Buffalo, where I grew up, and in New York City. I still keep in touch with a lot of those mentors today, because they were so incredibly influential in fostering my love for all aspects of performing and music and art and design.
Starting from when I was 14 years old I loved performing – I was a singer, starred in every school musical, played the piano, played the trumpet, played the violin for a short stint, and had an even shorter stint with the French horn. I loved all aspects of music. I also loved building worlds, bringing entire stage pictures to life. I built my first rain machine to make it pour on stage when I was 16 – definitely had some issues, definitely had some wet costumes – but I learned a lot early on. Then when I got to college, outside of my mismatched pre-med major, I got roped into the classical vocal performance department as my minor, though what I really loved was musical theater. Unfortunately, I couldn't dance, so I decided the better career path for me was to focus on my other love – design and creative direction.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d one day have the privilege of being creative and production designer for the incomparable Mariah Carey—and neither did my parents. I don’t think it was until almost three decades after dropping out of college, when my family was sitting in VIP 4th-row seats at Madison Square Garden surrounded by thousands of fans, and got to hang with MC after the show, that they understood how successful a “career in Drama Club” could turn out. I learned so much (and continue to learn so much) from Mariah, and from life on tour. And it wasn’t just her—getting to work with creative legends like Michaela angel-Davis, Debbie Allen and Fatima Robinson, and developing a friendship with manager Michael Richardson, gave me this super-accelerated industry education at the highest level.
Seeing what was going on with artists and fans on and off stage for traditional arena shows was when I really started thinking, “This is so archaic. There has to be a better way to do this.” And that’s when I knew, now having achieved well-beyond what my career goals were, it was time to create something bigger and better.
LD: What attracted you to experiential design versus staying in traditional theatre?
RK: Honestly, the money—theatre doesn’t pay. Full stop. Which is unfortunate because I believe to this day that theatre professionals are generally the most hard working, talented, and skilled people across entertainment, but get paid the least. So I went after the money and started applying my skills to corporate events. In the end it was good though, because a lot of the people who are part of the Arena One team today come from the connections I made in tech, sports, and a variety of other industries while doing corporate work. It took all kinds of skill sets and perspectives outside of just the music business to make this work. Best of all, I now take the greatest joy in employing theatre professionals at Arena One in jobs that pay them properly.
LD: Several theatre companies, including Britain’s National Theatre and The Met in New York, already transmit live performances to movie theatres. How does your platform differ?
RK: While these incredible respected institutions and successful companies like Fathom Events and Trafalgar Releasing have shifted attitudes about what can take place in cinemas, Arena One utilizes entirely different technologies and is unlike anything that exists today.
I was first approached by a friend who was consulting with a respected brand in the cinema space, to help them figure out how to create a live experience through movie theaters. I wasn't really into the idea—precisely because transmitting performances to theatres already existed, with examples such as the National Theater and the Met as you mentioned. Not to mention that, after the pandemic, to artists and fans the words “streaming event” conjured up all sorts of terrible memories of mediocre experiences.
At the time, the President of IMAX, Megan Colligan, and the Chief Strategy Officer, Mo Rhim (who incidentally, are now on the Arena One team) posed an interesting challenge to my team. They asked what we would do if we were tasked to create an experience that wasn't a consolation prize; that wasn't something that you would do because you couldn't afford to go to a show or because it wasn't in your city; but instead would be a new premium format that you would go to to experience live shows in an incredible new way. That was interesting to me.
One of the first things I did was invite the global artist I was working with at the time to an AMC theater with me to watch test footage, and give me feedback on all of the things that would make this an exciting format for both artists and audiences.
Artist after artist that I spoke to, the thing that kept on coming up, was that everything that had been done in any sort of live broadcast/streaming so far was a passive experience for both the artist and the fans. It was sorely missing the energy, the connection, the feedback that artists and fans feed off of to create the energy in a live room. So we set out to figure out not how to recreate that feeling but instead to use technology to make it even bigger than what we could do in traditional live concerts.
This became an obsession to me and the early Arena one team. During early development, I went to a performance by a theatre company called Tin Drum at The Shed in New York. It was an AR experience where the audience sat in a circle and witnessed the virtual performer (an augmented version of the deceased legendary pianist and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto) in the center of the room. The performance was incredible, but the thing that really unlocked for me that day was that so much of what makes a live experience exciting is the power of collective in-real-life energy, joy, and awe. Being in the room with other people, and experiencing the energy of each other—in this case, when the artist wasn’t even on this earth anymore—was so much of what makes live shows life-changing. After that, we set out to figure out how we could make that connection even bigger and deeper than what we could do in traditional concerts today.
And that's how Arena One was born. One World. One Arena. In an Arena One show you can interact with each other in the venue you're in, you can interact with the artist on stage, you can interact with other audiences in theaters around the country—all in one shared live experience. I can sit in Lincoln Square in New York City and wave to my friends on the other side of the stage at the same show in the Grove in LA or in a connected theater in Chicago or Nashville or Atlanta. I can invite my friends in towns like Poughkeepsie and Wichita to go to the same show with me—no matter where they are, all together all at once.
LD: How will it work if the audience wants to get up and dance? Does AMC have screening rooms that can accommodate this?
RK: This is not a movie. This is a live concert. When you walk into an Arena One theatre you're already in the show—the DJ is playing and interacting with you and audiences everywhere, the energy is high, and you can feel the music in your chest. I certainly hope the audience will be up and dancing!
There’s plenty of room for it. As we were developing this platform, theaters rapidly started moving towards recliner seating, which at first I found annoying for the purposes of live shows. But then we realized it actually worked to our advantage; when the recliners are closed, we get massive aisle space for people to dance!
LD: Are you using an existing network to each theatre like Digital Cinema Package/DCP or something new?
RK: This is not a film (which are distributed via DCP—digital hard drives—not live at all.) This is a real-time event in the most up-close and personal way you can experience live. In order to make this happen, we’ve spent the past three years building an ultra-low latency private fiber network, to connect hundreds of theaters across the country. Each location is fitted out with our proprietary tech stack, allowing for unprecedented two-way interactivity between artist and fans. When we need to flex up our seating capacity and footprint, we additionally utilize AMC’s existing digital cinema distribution network, enhancing it with robust audience interactivity via our connected in-theater mobile web experience that connects the stage to audiences in all theaters.
LD: Can you tell us how fast Tata Communications is able to transmit each performance?
RK: From our stage to auditoriums all across the country, the latency ranges roughly between 35 milliseconds on the low-end and 165 milliseconds on the-high end, round trip. That’s less of a delay for artists and fans than there is from a traditional stage to the back of a traditional stadium. The signal originates on the Arena One Stage and is processed in real-time via Tata Communications “The Switch” Network Operations Centers in LA and NYC.
The usual seven-second delay in “live” streams and broadcasts doesn’t exist here. It doesn’t get more live than this. Physical distance aside—you’ll never be closer or more connected to an artist than you are at an Arena One show.
LD: How will they accomplish this?
RK: Tata Communications owns a third of the global internet. With undersea cables connecting continents, they are the preeminent technology provider in this space. Their network is the foundation of the private high speed fiber network that we’ve installed to Arena One Theatres, and is the backbone of Arena One. It’s been a monumental and first-of-its kind technology application.
LD: How far along are you with proposed international performance hubs, particularly the ones suggested for London/Singapore/Mumbai. Is the plan to reach audiences in those countries to AMC Theatres in the US?
RK: We’re just getting started. Our inaugural studio is on the world-renowned Rock Lititz campus, a place where we can iterate and learn and innovate until we're ready to create additional studios across the country and globally.
On the theatrical side, with AMC we just announced 242 international connected theatres across nine countries adding to our seating footprint this year—further erasing the gap between artists and fans everywhere.
Once again, this is where Tata’s mastery of the global internet ensures reliable connectivity for expansion worldwide. While failure is highly unlikely, there are layers upon layers of redundancy and backup systems in place to ensure expansion is seamless.
LD: Arena One has suggested there will be "additional production enhancements that physically extend the performance into the theatres"—what form might these enhancements take? Is this communication with the artist, or merch, or backstage interviews/preshow behind the scenes video?
RK: All of the above. The most important aspect of being at an Arena One show is that it's an active, communal interactive experience. Some theaters are equipped with stage lighting that is controlled from our central front-of-house, others feature interactive wearables, all venues have in-show exclusive merch drops that you can order for drop shipping to your home, and select performances will include collectible items that come along with your ticket.
The experience in all venues includes our connected mobile experience, where fans can do everything from take selfies for a chance at them showing up on stage, submit song requests to opening DJ’s, participate in polls to determine the encore an artist will perform, submit questions to the artist which they will answer onstage and much more. There is no Arena One location anywhere where fans do not have an interactive experience with the show in their connected theatre.
LD: Why do you need to be in a specific venue—is the technology/platform going to evolve enough to stream live from somewhere on the road?
RK: The technology is already there. Our performance hub model is not due to a limitation in tech—we could broadcast from practically anywhere on earth today if we wanted to. Our hubs are very intentional, protected creative playgrounds—an aspect of what makes Arena One shows exclusive and unique.
People trying to increase their reach via streaming existing shows with existing audiences from anywhere, whether online or in theatres, is old news. Passive viewing will never be as satisfying of an experience as true live.
Every aspect of the Arena One stage, on the other hand, is cinema-native and designed for remote audience interactivity. It’s been designed meticulously to seamlessly translate real-time performances to a cinematic format, giving artists a massive vehicle to connect with IRL fans, and giving fans a singular best-seat interactive experience.
The level of built-in, ready to deploy production at our hub is greater than most artists will get in any touring show, with creative control that is almost impossible to achieve on the road or in a traditional venue. Lighting, automation, special FX and more are all meant for the audience in theatres only. This is not an experience where you are watching other people have fun at a show you couldn’t be at - this is the only show.
There is no other way to experience an Arena One show and audiences in theatres are the only audience—making every Arena One show a “you had to be there” moment. When you’re at an Arena One show it's not "like you are in the room." You are in the room.
LD: In terms of the performance hub, is the artist able to bring their own design team to set up the venue?
RK: Of course—all creators and creative teams are welcomed and encouraged, and the entire Arena One studio is built for creative collaboration and support. As a matter of fact, there are a multitude of prominent designers and creative directors who contributed, and continue to contribute, to the evolution of Arena One.
Our collective goal is to give the audience a better visual experience than any other venue—hence the purpose-built studio. What’s been great about Arena One so far is that artists and their design teams have really been leaning into the Arena One format as they develop their shows—using a combination of content they have and love and also developing new Arena One-specific visuals. The creative possibilities are endless. When we’re not designing a show ourselves, we’re there to help support artists' own teams in learning all of the technology and systems that power Arena One.
LD: Can you talk a little bit about the AMC Theatre sound?
RK: Sound for all performances was of paramount importance to us when designing Arena One. We have three audio units that come together in real-time: One traditional front-of-house for artists, which is integrated and mixed in real-time with Unit 2, our live surround mix team. And Unit 3 which collectively takes all of the return feeds from theaters around the country and mixes them live in surround, so audiences everywhere hear themselves, the artist, and each other collectively. Again, all in real-time.
A series of audio systems and technologies are what make it possible for artists to sing along with, and converse with, audiences naturally and seamlessly. When it’s time for an Arena One performance, all of our theaters around the country turn over to our customized live setting for visual and audio via AMC’s automated theater management system. The Arena One Audio team which consists of M3 Audio and PRG experts, spent weeks in various AMC’s ensuring that the sound is perfect.
Arena One shows are like being at a live concert with the sound of a live studio album.
LD: Will there be an audience in the room with the artist?
RK: There is no audience in the studio with the artist for a very intentional reason: The audience in the theatres, exclusively, is the audience. Every audience everywhere is in the room with the artist. It’s hard to wrap your head around, but that’s the magic of Arena One. The artist can call and respond, sing along, see, hear, talk to, and interact with audiences everywhere. No physical limitations or boundaries to “being in the room”.
For a very long time we’ve been conditioned to believe, and sold on the myth, that physical proximity is the aspiration, what we should pay ridiculous prices for. The reality is a different story. In most arenas and certainly stadiums, 80% of the audience is so far, that they spend the majority of shows staring at IMAG screens, or even worse staring at IMAG screens though the camera on their phones. You’re “in the room” with an artist you paid top dollar to see, and yet you’re so often removed from that artist by at least one if not two or even 3 screens. You sacrifice your rent or car payment to “be there”, but in a sea of thousands you’re glued to your phone.
The message is “pay a ton of money to be here, but spend most of your time staring at either a big screen or your tiny phone screen!” People even talk about having the biggest screens at a show as some sort of badge of honor. It’s mind boggling.
Ironically, even though Arena One is in theatres, we do the opposite—we use technology to bring audiences closer to the artist and to each other for a fraction of the cost of traditional concert experiences. Put down your phone for the majority of the experience and just enjoy the moment.
LD: Will the audience in the movie theatre be able to participate and are all AMC locations prepared for noise bleed to other screens?
RK: Audiences can participate as much or as little as they choose to just like in any other concert. We’ve been working with AMC for three years now to get Arena One shows to integrate smoothly into their other experiences. All guest experience is critical for us, whether it’s people in our shows or in adjacent theaters.
LD: Can the artist to see audiences around the country?
RK: Yes, audiences at Arena One shows can see the artist, and the artist can see, hear, and communicate with them right through the screens and/or through other interactive elements. Our studio is set up for the artist to experience, see, hear, and interact with audiences in a way that is incredibly familiar to them, and feels native to their experience on other stages.
Just like any show, the amount of interaction that happens is whatever is natural to the artist onstage and the audience at the show, as each unique performance takes shape in real-time.
The artist may just wave to a single fan in the audience who is dressed to impress just once in a whole show, or they may call out a group of friends who have made great signs and invite them to take a selfie to put up on the onstage screens, or engage everyone in a full-on dance party, or spend time in intimate conversations and Q&A sessions with fans around the country—ultimately, it’s up to artists and fans to shape the experience in real-time.
LD: The first four artists announced are relatively small, in terms of audience followers. Who are your target artists?
RK: Arena One is for people who love music, and want to experience personal connections with their favorite artists. We don’t think of any artist as “small”, especially if we’re using social media as the metric. We don’t need artists to be social media experts—we need them to be good at what they love to do. The rest will follow and grow.
The beauty of Arena One’s distributed seating footprint is that while there may be hundreds of thousands of seats, they are distributed across several markets, meaning any single location only has between 100 to 500 seats per performance available. An artist doesn’t need to be able to sell several arenas. From a scale perspective, it’s like being able to perform at roughly 325 club-size venues in one night.
Unlike other new and innovative venues, Arena One is not just for A-List artists. The upcoming year will be filled with artists at all stages, from emerging artists to globally renowned superstars, across all genres. We’re really excited to share the diverse lineup as we are able to.
All that said, Arena One is the first step in building a new live performance ecosystem that gives fans fair and reasonable access, to both their favorite artists and ones they may not have even discovered yet. Not to mention that no matter who the artist is, it’s just a great night out with friends for far less than the cost of parking and even the farthest nosebleed seat at a traditional show.
LD: What changes in technology have happened that made this business venture possible now?
RK: The live production industry is evolving so fast that everything from visuals to sound to the speed of transmission is leaps and bounds beyond where it was just a few years ago. When I started in entertainment we were still painting backdrops and the term “latency” wasn’t even in my vocabulary.
Screens onstage were an extreme rarity, but these days it’s hard to find a show, from broadway to concerts that doesn’t have some monstrous screen behind it—often to the detriment of creativity. Screens in live shows can be cool, but they can also very quickly make us creatively lazy. At the same time, screen technology is part of what makes Arena One possible—but it’s not the star of the show. To us, the screen is a tool, a portal.
The real change that makes this all possible though, is way bigger than technology. In an age where AI is exploding, people are longing for a live, authentic, truthful connection where they can see and hear shared moments together IRL, with their own eyes and ears.
At the same time, the pandemic changed our relationship with screens—making it more native for us to “meet” through a screen but also highlighting how much we need physical connection as humans. Recent performances from Kid Cudi to Justin Bieber are exploring the relationship between screens and fans and live in whole new ways. Advances in technology are a part of what makes this possible, but where we are in culture is the true driver of what makes Arena One the ideal platform to meet the moment.
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LD: What is the most technically challenging part of this?
RK: Imagine taking all of the challenges of producing and designing a stadium show—from visuals to staging to lighting programming to sound and more—and then taking all the audience sections of that stadium and breaking them apart and spreading them all over the world, and then taking all of the people in those sections and moving them to the best, up-close floor-seats experience, and then getting it all to sync up seamlessly. Getting technology to serve the experience flawlessly is the biggest challenge.
The sheer scale and decentralized nature of Arena One, and bringing all of the distributed audiences back together to a singular moment in time on a central stage, all together, all at once, makes the challenges self-evident.
It’s taken years, and a world class team of artists, technical experts, and leaders in live production to make it happen.