Marshmello’s Fortnite concert had 10 million players in attendance

The future of “live” entertainment is upon us, and the potential benefits are crazier than anyone could have predicted.

Following a blitz of news and leaks last week, Marshmello performed at the world’s first in-game concert over the weekend through an exclusive partnership with Epic Games. The performance, held at Pleasant Park in the incredibly popular game Fortnite, drew a crowd of 10 million split across thousands of concurrent gaming sessions. That figure could be much larger, as the number given does not include viewers who watched the performance via Twitch or other streaming services. Here’s how it worked:

When players logged in to Fortnite – which has over 125 million players, according to its developers – they were met with only one competitive game mode available to them. When they chose to join the ‘Showtime Mode’ they were transported to the in-game park, which was modified to feature a performance space. Marshmello appeared on stage at 2 PM EST to share 10 minutes of music accompanied by a wide array of special effects such as lighting and sparks mirroring his real-world concert production.

A video of the performance is available below. The clip has already amassed more than 15 million views on YouTube.

The 10 million concurrent players watching Marshmello’s set is amazing, but what happened after the performance is even more impressive.

Throughout January, Marshmello averaged 37k new YouTube subscribers per day, and about 7.8 million YouTube views per day. On February 3, one day after the concert, Marshmello gained 699k new subscribers (nearly a 1,800% increase from his previous daily gain of 37k). He also amassed over 42.8M YouTube views, an increase of about 500% from his January average of 7.8 million views per day.

But the change in activity online doesn’t stop there.

According to Next Big Sound, Marshmello gained over 147K new Twitter followers this past week, up more than 2,000% from the week before (6,800). His Twitter mentions also increased by more than 1,000% (from 4,800 to 57,500).

With numbers like this, it is highly likely that additional in-game concerts will happen in the coming months. Epic has not revealed any information regarding the cost of the Marshmello promotion, but the return on investment most likely surpasses the time and money associated with making the event happen.