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Author: Sam Davies
Picture Credit: Courtesy of Lost Horizon
“Hi everyone I’m Carl Cox. Welcome to our festival.” A superstar DJ stands behind the decks in a Hawaiian shirt. “I’m so happy to be able to do this for you guys today. What I’m gonna be playing is some Glastonbury festival classics, some Carl Cox techno bangers, and a few new tracks as well.”
Before him there’s a man with blue hair wearing nothing but trainers and underpants, a dancer with the bright yellow head of a rubber duck, a woman who thinks she can fly, a man wearing a piece of toast on his face, and a dancing blue shark like the ones from Katy Perry’s 2015 Super Bowl show.
Orbital’s 1991 anthem ‘Belfast’ is Cox’s opener. This might sound like a typical scene at Shangri-La, the after-hours heart of Glastonbury’s southeast corner — and it is. But this is July 2020, in a summer when not a single festival took place.
This is Lost Horizon, in virtual reality. The members of the crowd are all avatars, created by real people but baring little or no resemblance to their true selves. Mr Cox is real: he’s in a kitchen somewhere standing in...
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