The biggest gigs of 2021 will be by the smallest artists. Pocket-size artists, to be precise. But what they lack in stature they make up for with superpowers, not least the ability to make mind-boggling sums of money in a matter of minutes.
The real world is waiting for venues to reopen, but in the “metaverse” of gaming, pop stars-turned-avatars are shattering attendance records. Last April, a month into lockdown, 12.3 million people concurrently watched an avatar of the rapper Travis Scott play a nine-minute set inside the video game Fortnite, the equivalent of 144 sold-out Wembley Stadiums. Four encores — the computerised concert on repeat — in the following days took the total to 27 million. Those who entered the game more than
