{"id":50656,"date":"2021-06-10T12:26:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T10:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.embl.org\/events\/?p=2430"},"modified":"2022-09-08T09:33:15","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T08:33:15","slug":"lazy-fur-upgrades-virtual-conferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/2021\/06\/lazy-fur-upgrades-virtual-conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Lazy Fur upgrades virtual conference experience with live music"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Meet Ira and Tom \u2013 a newly-wed couple from Heidelberg and band members of Lazy Fur &#8211; a music duo that have been performing live for participants of numerous virtual EMBL conferences and symposia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image size-full wp-image-2475\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-content\/uploads\/LAZYFUR.png\" alt=\"Tom and Ira of Lazy Fur. Ira holding a mic, Tom playing the guitar\" class=\"wp-image-2475\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Tom and Ira of Lazy Fur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"vf-blockquote\"><p><em>&#8220;It feels good that we can bring joy and help provide even a better conference experience with a little bit of live music.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Who is Lazy Fur?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Tom is a Research Staff Scientist in Matthias Hentze\u2019s and Wolfgang Huber\u2019s labs at EMBL Heidelberg and Ira is an executive assistant in a real estate company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both of them grew up with music. Ira started singing when she was little and now also plays the piano and bass guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I used to play the keyboard but discovered my calling as a guitarist in my PostDoc time at EMBL.&#8221;&nbsp;<span style=\"color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px;\">Tom shares.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They bonded over their passion for music and started playing acoustic covers of pop and rock songs and singer\/songwriter style music. Ira is inspired by Walk Off The Earth, a Canadian group of friends who do spectacular covers of pop songs. And Tom is generally fascinated by buskers in Dublin he met during his PhD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Virtual concert setup<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Virtual conferences are great for many things, but it is very hard to organise entertainment. Lazy Fur found a way to give a live music performance and interact with participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tom had to put in quite some effort to get it right:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The technical side was quite challenging at first, but now we are very happy that we can provide high-quality streams.&nbsp;We can interact with the viewers who appreciate the live aspect of our performance. &#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Conference entertainment in times of Covid-19: \u2714. Thanks to Lazy Fur for a great virtual concert. \ud83d\udc4c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EMBLOmics?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#EMBLOmics<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/virtualconference?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#virtualconference<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lEuTaahuqS\">pic.twitter.com\/lEuTaahuqS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; EMBL Events (@EMBLEvents) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EMBLEvents\/status\/1329128189889835009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What is it like to perform for a virtual audience?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Onsite, you can easily tell which songs the audience likes and if they like the show. In front of a virtual audience, it is more difficult, because you can not see and hear them. Tom and Ira did find a way to interact with the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The audience can communicate with us either via the YouTube or conference platform chat displayed on the TV in front of us.&#8221;&nbsp;<span style=\"color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 16px;\">Tom says.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ira:<\/strong> &#8220;We are extremely happy about all the positive responses we got in the chat or comments people sent us after the show.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tom:<\/strong> &#8220;We have had&nbsp;heart-warming messages from participants about how they enjoyed it. They wrote that this was a very unique and uplifting experience that reminded them of past conferences at the EMBL Heidelberg site.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"From Functional Genomics To Systems Biology -Lazy Fur - EMBL Conference Entertainment\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CYrdiY4ETFc?start=1212&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>And after Covid-19?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tom:<\/strong> &#8220;Performing live is just an amazing experience. EMBL has a great appreciation for live music at their events and it is wonderful to connect with people on that level. So yes, definitely looking forward to that as well!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lazy Fur will be performing at the virtual EMBO Workshop: Predicting Evolution, 14 \u2013 16 June&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/lazyfur.net\/\">the website of Lazy Fur<\/a><br>Check the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/LazyFur\/featured\">Lazy Fur YouTube channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Ira and Tom \u2013 a newly-wed couple from Heidelberg and band members of Lazy Fur &#8211; a music duo that have been performing live for participants of numerous virtual EMBL conferences and symposia. &#8220;It feels good that we can bring joy and help provide even a better conference experience&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":64274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7644,7640],"tags":[8470,8472,8474,8476,8478,8480,8482],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-50656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes","category-news-views","tag-band","tag-lazy-fur","tag-live-concert","tag-live-music","tag-music","tag-social-programme","tag-virtual-confernece"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-content\/uploads\/LazyFur-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50656"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64276,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656\/revisions\/64276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50656"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/course-and-conference-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=50656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}