hololive production brought its first-ever Australian concert to DreamHack Melbourne this weekend, and the VTuber group’s 3D performance might have just converted me into a fan.
hololive production – which is stylised in lowercase, don’t come for me in the comments – is a Virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agency consisting of groups including hololive and HOLOSTARS, with a focus on livestreaming and content creation on platforms like YouTube. With 2D and 3D character models in a recognisable anime style, the performers don their models to perform music to diehard fans across the globe, with each member of hololive production bringing their own unique personality and character to the stage.
The sheer scale of the hololive fandom is mindblowing – the group features talent with a combined social media following of over 10 million fans worldwide. The free preview livestream of the DreamHack Melbourne show (a short sneak peek viewers could watch without purchasing a livestream ticket) garnered 242k views on YouTube. The in-person crowd at Rod Laver Arena – the first time the venue has hosted a VTuber concert – was packed.
Punters came out in force with their hololive penlights (essentially glow sticks), which change the colours to match the performers on stage throughout the show. These penlights were moved to the beat in hypnotising synchronicity as fans screamed their hearts out for their favourite characters. Watching hololive productions felt like a spectacle that was as much about the crowd as it was about the VTubers – seeing such a dedicated fandom in action feels like something often reserved for the likes of the Swifties these days.
I had my reservations about the hololive performance in the leadup to DreamHack Melbourne – only recently, a 3D Hatsune Miku concert was reamed by fans for being a flat performance on a screen as opposed to the well-known holographic showcases seen in the past. However, they were pretty quickly blown away the moment the 3D ‘curtain’ dropped, revealing animated performers that truly did look like they were strutting around the Rod Laver main stage. They reacted to the crowd’s antics, praised Melburnian coffee – courtesy of local talent Hakos Baelz, who made a triumphant return to Australia for the performance – and engaged with the audience as if they were right there in the flesh.
It’s not quite clear where exactly the real people behind the hololive production performers at DreamHack Melbourne were capturing their performances from, but from the sounds of it they were actually at least in the city somewhere. Regardless of where their physical bodies were, their presence was just as real and captivating as any IRL performance I’ve seen take place in the arena.
I might not be down in the front performing a wotegei-style dance with light sticks for a VTuber group any time soon, but it was pretty hard not to get swept up in the captivating energy in Rod Laver Arena that night. As far as headline acts for a large-scale gaming event like DreamHack go, this is probably up there with one of the most unique and entertaining I’ve ever seen. I might just have been converted into a fan – I’ve certainly been bopping along to tunes from the weekend while writing up my thoughts, and might just keep doing so.
Image: ESL / hololive production
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