Kacey Musgraves Steps Into the ‘Middle of Nowhere’ with Meta Immersive Experience

Created for Meta, directed by Rohan Blair-Mangat and produced by Untold Studios, the new immersive music experience transports audiences inside Billy Bob’s, an iconic Honky Tonk bar in Fort Worth, Texas.

Rather than capturing an existing live show and translating it into immersive, the project flips the traditional concert-film format. Every element - from the staging and choreography to the lighting, camera positions and transitions - were designed around one thing: the audience’s point of view.

With immersive filmmaking, the camera isn’t simply documenting the action. It is the audience. “A lot of immersive music projects are shot at existing shows, so there are limitations on where cameras can be placed” says director Rohan Blair-Mangat. “Meta gave us the freedom to design everything around the camera, which in immersive, is the audience’s perspective.”

Working alongside executive creative director Phil Lee and Sam Cannon, Rohan developed the experience as a journey rather than a succession of performances - building out its opening, transitions and interstitial moments before adapting each beat to the physical possibilities of Billy Bob’s.

“At Untold, we’re always excited by what can happen when ambitious creative thinking meets ground breaking technology,” says Phil Lee, executive creative director at Untold Studios. “Partnering with Meta gave us the opportunity to push what immersive storytelling can feel like. We were able to bring together cinematic craft, live performance and VR to create something that feels genuinely new - an experience that doesn’t simply capture Kacey’s performance, but places the audience inside her world.”

The visual language pulls from cinema, art and modern honky-tonk culture, layered with touches of magical realism. Musgraves was closely involved throughout, shaping details spanning set design and choreography, while lighting designer André Petrus developed a series of rich lighting states and cues that push the performance beyond the conventions of a traditional live capture.

At the centre of the film is a standout sequence: a two-song performance filmed entirely in one take in Billy Bob's bull riding arena.

“It’s a really special sequence” says Rohan. “The lucky few of us hiding right behind the camera could feel the magic in the air as Kacey and her band performed. That energy really translates in the headset".

It’s that feeling of being there - not watching from the outside, but standing inside the performance - that sits at the heart of the experience.

With Middle of Nowhere, Meta and Musgraves use ground breaking technology to turn the traditional front-row seat into something else entirely: a music experience built for immersive from the ground up, placing the audience right at the centre of Kacey’s world. No front row required.