Summer 2020: no jam-packed concerts, no long lines of excited concert-goers at stadiums and arenas. Quarantine put a halt on all in-person live events. 

So, entertainers realized they needed to change. As early as March, musicians, concert promoters, even movie producers had figured out how to keep on entertaining by using technology and platforms in new ways. 

Junior Nayelli Torres recently went to her first online concert to see her favorite group, Seventeen. 

“My experience went really well… although because of the time zones it was at 2 a.m. for me, so staying up was a little hard,” she said. “But just being able to see them perform and see all the things that they planned for their fans was really sweet.” 

According to Billboard.com, big-name artists such as Liam Payne, Ellie Goulding, and Katy Perry have all put on online concerts while in-person concerts have stopped. San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival, which usually takes place in late summer, was changed this year to “Inside Lands”, with artists like mxmtoon, Cage The Elephant, and Kehlani all performing sets virtually.  In June, CNN’s “Class of 2020: In This Together” and LeBron James’ “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020” brought special guests and musicians to the screen to congratulate the Class of 2020 when their Senior Year was canceled. 

“Something that I miss [about in-person concerts] was obviously getting to see the group in person and having an in-person interaction, but something I really liked was that this concert was longer than an actual concert usually is, so you get to ‘spend’ more time with the group and watch them do different segments that they normally wouldn’t do during a concert,” Nayeli said. 

Online concerts differ from each other the same way that in-person concerts differ. According to Nayelli, the Seventeen concert lasted for four hours and had segments other than performances, such as “Seventeen News”, which consisted of members interviewing one another, and a version of the Olympics where they played a variety of competitive games.