Do People Still Care About Roblox Concerts?
- Jul 28
- 6 min read
During the pandemic, as everyone around the world was stuck at home, virtual concerts in Roblox and Fortnite emerged as a way to connect with popular music artists alongside other fans. More than 12 million people watched Travis Scott live in Fortnite in 2020. Later that year, Lil Nas X held a Roblox concert that played four times and accumulated 33 million views.
These successes spawned a lot more virtual concerts from the likes of Charli XCX, Tate McRae, 24kGoldn and others. Music companies started to get in on the action. In September of 2022, iHeartRadio created iHeartLand and launched it with a concert from Lauv on a State Farm sponsored stage.
Why Did Virtual Concerts Stop Working?
But then the popularity of virtual concerts on gaming platforms dropped sharply. Why? Mainly because they are expensive to produce and stopped attracting players. The novelty finally wore off, and players weren't interested in coming to see an artist's avatar perform songs online. It became hard to get people to care, so the ROI to put them on stopped being there.
Roblox Created The Block - It's Own Concert Venue
One way that Roblox itself has worked to bring concerts back to the platform is through its own space, The Block. This is Roblox's own concert venue, where different acts are able to take it over and perform. Artists such as Billie Eilish, Huntrix from KPop Demon Hunters and, recently, the Rolling Stones have shown up.
Since the space is already built and just needs to be reskinned, the cost to create a concert here isn't super large. And while it gives artists and record labels an easy way to show up on the platform, and often get promoted by Roblox on their homepage and across their social channels, this doesn't always lead to massive attendance figures. Because as mentioned before, the draw just isn't there to go and watch virtual concerts like there once was. Why do some people attend? Well, there are often free UGC avatar items given away to people who show up, which is a big draw for UGC collectors.
The Block was created in July of 2025 and has amassed 46 million visits, which is decent. But when you consider that they've hosted all of these artists: Aespa, Billie Eilish, BSlick, KATSEYE, Laufey, LE SSERAFIM, Miami XO, Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters, Parry Gripp, Sofi Tukker, Stray Kids, The Knocks, The Rolling Stones and Tolou, you can see that it doesn't add up to a high number of visits per artist.
Part of this speaks to the challenges of getting people to a custom game. If the game is trending and huge, then great. But most concerts have happened in custom games that didn't have much gameplay and didn't have an existing audience.
Artists Are Leaning Into The Brand Integration Playbook
As I've written about before, the latest trend has been for brands to show up in Roblox via integrations into existing games. That's because this allows brands to show up in games that are already popular and tap into the existing audience. If you're a brand integrating, you are able to get a sense of how many people will see your brand. If you're building a custom game (or concert), you can't be sure how popular it will be.
This logic has started to be adopted by music artists. In January of 2026, Bruno Mars did a concert in the popular game Steal a Brainrot. That drew 12.8 million concurrent viewers and set a Guinness World Record for the largest music concert in a videogame by a single artist. How did they do it? By putting a world famous artist in one of the very biggest games on the platform. They had a special Bruno Mars brainrot to earn, which was valuable because the game was played by so many people. That in-game reward was more appealing than free UGC, given the popularity of the game.
What Happened At The bbno$ Roblox Concert?
This past weekend, Canadian artist bbno$ (pronounced baby no monye) took a page from the Bruno Mars and Steal a Brainrot playbook and did a concert within +1 Speed Keyboard Escape. The concert peaked at 6,395,858 concurrent players, roughly half of Bruno's world record. However, the game attracted 133,657,691 visits on Saturday (day of the concert) versus 94,365,887 the Saturday before, a 42% lift week over week. That is the number a brand or a label should actually care about.
The peak likely came in soft because players couldn't get in to play the game. bbno$ posted a screenshot of the game showing as unavailable during the event, and there was chatter across X about connection problems.
This Was a Major Game Update, Not Just A Concert
The event was titled ADMIN ABUSE & WORLD and was run by the game's developer, SecretVerse Studio. Players who registered got a x2 speed boost. There was a bbno$ World added to the game, exclusive items, and an exclusive treadmill skin. Then the admin session. Then the concert.
The x2 speed boost is a huge benefit for players. In a game whose entire progression is built around speed, doubling it is the core currency, and I'd guess it drove more of those registrations than the artist did. And an admin abuse event is a Roblox native format where developers drop into live servers and use god mode commands to break the rules of their own game. It's chaotic and unpredictable and fun to watch, which makes it a streaming magnet.
So what an artist is buying here isn't just a stage. It's a reason for a big game to run a content drop, and the game's own reward economy is what converts players into attendance.
What Was Different About This Concert?
The integration move was smart. There was press about this from Billboard Canada and other music outlets. But there was another interesting part that caught my attention.
bbno$ collaborated with several top Roblox video creators, including KreekCraft, Foltyn, and Kat. These creators had their avatars choreographed dancing with the artist's avatar during the concert, and several of them livestreamed the concert and were voice chatting with each other and the artist. This is a ton of promotion for a Canadian artist who isn't the household name that a Bruno Mars is. The show inside the game was only one layer. The second layer ran on YouTube and TikTok, where these creators have audiences in the millions, and that reach may have exceeded what happened in game.
Why Does The Charity Angle Matter?
Bbno$ said he was donating his proceeds to the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK nonprofit focused on protecting kids from abuse material online, with donations also coming through in game purchases. That was cool, and it was also smart.
Safety is aloaded topic on Roblox, and ultimately it's the factor that determines whether serious brand advertising budgets show up on the platform or not. An artist who routes money to a child safety organization on the way in is earning goodwill from parents, press and the platform at the same time. I'd expect to see more of these charity concerts in the future.
Will More Music Artists Try This?
I imagine so. Integrations can really work and get your name and music out there to a large audience. But it has to be a good fit. If it comes off as cheesy and lame, nobody will pay attention and you'll come off looking terrible.
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Stephen Dypiangco is one the world’s leading experts on the topic of Roblox and brands. He has advised global companies on their Roblox strategies, including BBC Studios, Paramount, and Takara Tomy.
With 120+ articles published about Roblox and a following of over 14,000 across LinkedIn and his industry leading Max Power Gaming newsletter, he is widely regarded by gaming industry executives and investors as a trusted resource.
Stephen is building the premiere network of Roblox professionals to help this emerging sector connect and scale through his unique blend of relevant content and community events.
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