Finland’s largest online event
Helsinki celebrated May Day 2020 entirely virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. JVG’s interactive, virtual reality-based May Day concert attracted 700 000 viewers, making it the largest online event in Finland to date. We had the honor of being part of building the concert’s event platform, the Burst.fi website, and of bringing the spring celebration and fun to everyone in a completely new way.
Interactive virtual May Day event platform
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the traditional May Day events, including the Manta statue’s crowning, the Helsinki mayor’s speech, and the performance by JVG — Finland’s most popular band — were held entirely virtually this year. The event was sponsored by OnePlus, the City of Helsinki, and others, with the execution and production handled by Zoan, a company specializing in virtual experiences.
JVG’s concert and its virtual environment were created using 3D modeling and virtual reality technology. We were responsible for designing and implementing the web interface for the burst.fi virtual experience. Virtual reality provided an opportunity to experience the concert in a completely new and unique way. The concert site also offered viewers the chance to interact, react, and experience a sense of community — something much needed this spring. Performers were able to see the audience and their reactions live on screen, making the concert genuinely two-way and interactive.
Serverless technology as the foundation of the service
The service’s user interface was built using React and other libraries from the React ecosystem. Users of the service were able to create an avatar, which then appeared as a 3D representation in the live broadcast hosted by Zoan. We developed an integration that allowed users to send reactions and actions from their devices, which were transmitted via Amazon Web Services (AWS) to be rendered by the Unreal Engine game engine.
The service was implemented using serverless technology: data flows through Amazon AWS Lambda. The burst.fi website is hosted on AWS S3. Thanks to AWS, the service was scaled to support over 150 000 visitors without any issues.
"The COVID crisis has forced people to change their ways of doing things. It has been great to be part of this project, bringing a completely new concert experience to people. The project has been technically challenging, and the timeline has been very tight. It's wonderful to see how experts from various fields are working together towards the common goal of preserving traditions and enabling people to safely celebrate May Day from their living rooms."
Jaakko Alajoki
CTO, Evermade
Results from the website
On May day eve 30.4.2020
Visitors
150 000
Sessions
200 000
Page views
680 000
Bounce rate
25.08 %
