Metal heads mosh. Even though a mosh pit seems like the most uncontrollable and dangerous thing for outsiders, for a lot of metal fans it’s a safe place where they can be themselves. A place with an unmatched feeling of togetherness that forges a bond for life. Unfortunately metalheads had to miss this feeling for the 2nd year in a row. I think we all know why ;).

Metal heads game, too. The metal community is strongly present in the gaming and coding world. Belgian radio station, Studio Brussel decided to use these insights to draw a bigger crowd to its annual metal special called: The Loudest List, which is made up of 666 songs chosen by public vote.

For 66 minutes, metal heads were asked questions and dilemmas about the metal genre. The more correct answers and the faster the answer, the higher you got in the ranking. But instead of just showing a ranking, we turned the real time data into a live virtual mosh pit. Each metalhead was represented by an avatar that they could track and that constantly changed position. The more correct and faster the answers, the closer the avatar moved to the centre of the pit in order to become the last metal standing. This way, we gave metal heads back home the glorious feeling of the mosh pit.

Every year, people vote for the loudest list of radio station Studio Brussel. But because metalheads are also avid gamers, we decided to automatically give everyone who voted a digital avatar in a virtual moshpit. For a whole week, the virtual pit filled up with avatars, each representing a metal head who voted. All metal heads were invited and targeted to mosh for 66 minutes for the chance to win a unique prize: 666 years of free metal festivals. Based on their real time data such as correct answers, answering speed and time spent on the platform, avatars moved to the centre of the pit.The metal head whose avatar remained in the centre at the end was the winner.

The virtual mosh pit attracted 26,800 metalheads who voted for Studio Brussels' loudest list, the largest audience to date: 33% more voters than last year. The average engagement on the platform of the virtual mosh pit was 66(!) minutes. The fastest correct answer was given in 0.282 seconds.