Testbeds & trials

5G Festival

  • Started on 1 Aug 2020
  • Completed on 1 Apr 2022

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  • Total project value: £3,438,497
  • DCMS funding: £2,238,692
  • Project location: South East
  • Project Finished: 1st April 2022

Using a cutting edge, immersive platform that leverages high bandwidth and ultra-low latency 5G technology, audiences and artists will connect seamlessly across continents, driving new experiences from the home as well as major venues such as the Brighton Dome and the 02 Arena, using most advanced 5G facilities by Digital Catapult and Telefonica. For example a music fan in Edinburgh could experience their favorite artist live in LA, collaborating with another artist in London, all without having to leave their front room.

Jeremy Silver, CEO, Digital Catapult said:

As live performers have been totally prevented from working because of the Coronavirus, a lot of bright minds have been focused on how to create exciting alternative experiences for a virtual world. The result of this work was an exciting bid into the 5GCreate competition to produce a virtual festival that could offer 5G enabled experiences in which performers could reach audiences in an entirely new way. We’re thrilled now to be able to bring the 5G Festival to life, working with world leading venues, organisations and artists to push forward with the next evolution of entertainment.


Project Overview

5G Festival is a world first 5G powered, digital immersive hybrid festival experience. It will be a showcase of creative talent blended with the power of advanced digital technologies, and broadcast live directly to audiences at remote locations from world-leading venues, as well as producing novel immersive in-venue experiences. 

  • Led by Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading advanced digital technology centre and 5G specialist, 5G Festival brings together global music company Warner Music Group
  • Renowned live arts venue and culture organisation Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival working with Brighton 5G testbed partner Wired Sussex
  • telecommunications service provider and sponsor of The O2 and O2 Academy Venues
  • pioneers in music production Metropolis Studios (audio mixing, production and venue)
  • Sonosphere (immersive audio and live streaming)
  • Audiotonix (audio mixing consoles and AoIP networking)
  • innovative digital technology companies Mativision (5G, 360° immersive live streaming and distribution platform)
  • LiveFrom (blockchain ticketing)

5G Festival will produce a 5G powered, virtual, live immersive collaboration platform for artists, enabling seamless production and performance from wherever they are, and enriching the festival experience for audiences at home and/or at the venue.

5G’s ability to transmit with low latency and in ultra-high bandwidth, alongside Mativision's network-ready 360° content distribution platform, will transform the ability of physically separate artists to produce immersive, live, collaborative performances across multiple venues.

The core 5G infrastructure is based on Digital Catapult’s 5G Testbed, which spans three sites across Brighton and London, and offers technologically complete end-to-end, standards compliant, commercial and open source network services, inter-connected with O2’s public 5G network. The O2 Lab will be developing the customer facing mobile application for the project. 

5G Festival will help create a more diversified, sustainable live music industry, reaching new artists and audiences, helping to future-proof business models for venues and festivals adversely affected by global risks (such as coronavirus and climate change), and providing valuable, high-quality, immersive experiences to audiences wherever they are. 

You can see more videos from the project below:

March trial

June trial

November trial

The latest round up of the project to date can be viewed on the Digital Catapult's website here.

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