Plenty of artists have ended their tours with a homecoming concert, and in a sense that’s exactly what Sailorr is doing with her ‘From Florida’s Finest’ tour this year. In this case, the place she’s coming home to is Roblox.
Having grown up playing games on the platform, Sailorr will now be the star of a two-week activation in one of its popular games, Baddies, as the final stage of her live itinerary.
Atlantic Records and Gamefam are behind the campaign, which starts this Saturday (19 July). It includes a virtual performance of three tracks replayed every three hours on Saturdays and Sundays during the event, with fans competing in PvP [player vs player] battles around them.
There will also be a Sailorr-branded boombox that fans can use to play her music within Roblox; and quests within Baddies that they can complete to win branded virtual items.
This all ties in to Sailorr’s official Roblox fan group ‘The Vault’, which already has more than 8,000 members, and she will be livestreaming on Twitch during the campaign, including collabs with popular Roblox creators.
Gamefam’s SVP of growth Alli Guglielmino told Music Ally how the process of identifying partner games works for its artist projects, including Baddies in this instance.
“We start by asking: where would this artist actually spend time or fit on Roblox? What experience reflects their personality, aesthetic and community? With Sailorr, her debut album and tour was a huge cue,” she said.
“She’s leaning into a raw, unapologetic Florida aesthetic of her home town – a kind of chaotic lawless energy that Baddies already embodies. The cultural alignment was unmistakable as Baddies taps into the exact type of Florida attitude she’s channeling in her music and tour, so it became the perfect game to bring her persona to life in.”
Scale is important too, though. “Baddies is one of Roblox’s most popular action games with over 2.5 million daily gameplay sessions, and its player base skews to young women, who are a core part of Sailorr’s growing fanbase,” said Guglielmino.
“Baddies’ wild, chaotic energy mirrors SAILORR’s persona, and its PvP gameplay opened the door for us to create something entirely new: concert battles that combine performance with competitive play.”
The Baddies activation reflects a wider trend on Roblox for music campaigns to be more ambitious than just one-off in-game concerts, which is how artists and labels tended to get started on the platform a few years ago.
“Those were groundbreaking at the time — but proved to be expensive and time consuming so the trend has quickly shifted toward custom in-game integrations that unfold across multiple in-game and social touchpoints for maximum impact over the course of several weeks or months,” said Guglielmino.
She added that this has now become part of Gamefam’s playbook: combining in-game quests and rewards to influencer campaigns on social media.
“We find that this always-on component throughout the activation creates for more sustained and deeper engagement than a one-time concert. Artists aren’t just performing in the metaverse anymore: they’re building culture and communities in it,” she said.
“To take it to the next level, we believe that a persistent, long-term presence is what wins on Roblox – not just one-off activations. Activating once definitely makes an impact, but for true community building, artists and their labels should be thinking about ongoing engagement.”
Gamefam has worked on Roblox projects for a variety of artists who aren’t already embedded in the platform and its culture: Cher and Coldplay for example.
Those campaigns were successful – to the tune of more than 25m visits and 295m minutes of engagement for Coldplay’s takeover of four Roblox games for the launch of their ‘Moon Music’ album last year. But when it works with an artist who is a big Roblox player, it opens up some interesting possibilities.
“It makes all the difference when an artist activating on Roblox is already part of the Roblox community. The experience becomes exponentially more authentic, collaborative, and resonant with fans,” said Guglielmino.
“Sailorr didn’t need to be briefed on how Roblox works. She leaned in and even brought ideas to us. That creates trust with the community because they instantly know this is real.”
She stressed that this does not make activations for older, non-Roblox-native artists inauthentic or limited. The campaign for Cher’s Christmas album reached millions of players and drove discovery of her music, for example.
“But it illustrates what it’s like to bring different types of artists from very different demographics to Roblox. With Sailorr, her audience already lives on Roblox, and she’s been part of the culture. That kind of native presence opens the door for a different kind of creativity and connection.”
There’s more where she came from. “We’re entering a wave where more Gen Z artists, who literally grew up on Roblox, are hitting their stride musically,” said Guglielmino.
“Sailorr is only the tip of the iceberg of Roblox players activating on Roblox once they become stars. We believe that’s a winning strategy for the future of music activations in this space, and we expect to see a lot more of it.”
Sailorr herself says that Roblox continues to figure prominently in her creative life.
“Roblox is one of those unspoken places where you get to connect with your friends you made on the internet during the late hours of the night,” she told Music Ally.
“I’m thankful I’ve garnered an audience around my music because it feels like such a special community that understands me at my core, and I can’t imagine those late nights at the studio finishing ‘From Florida’s Finest’ without hopping on to play Dress to Impress or Baddies.”
“There are so many people on the platform that found me while ‘Pookie’s Requiem’ [her major-label debut] was going up and it’s cool to see how full circle it is that I get to bring the tour to an action game on Roblox,” she added.
“Never in my life would I have imagined a way for the two worlds to collide, and I can’t wait to further build out the world around me with all my little silly hobbies.”
What does success look like for these kinds of activations? Gamefam is seeing a shift in the expectations of its label and artist partners over time, according to Guglielmino.
“On-platform metrics matter and show value: gameplay sessions, minutes spent listening to the artist’s music, UGC item redemptions, quest completions. But increasingly, our partners are looking to see impact IRL,” she said.
“That includes off-platform signals: Is there a bump in streams, particularly among Gen Z and A listeners during the activation? Are social followings growing? Did the activation spike Twitch or YouTube viewers? What we’re tracking now is the ripple effect — how a moment in the metaverse spreads culturally.”
“What’s most important is fan connection,” she added. “When done right, these activations drive deeper loyalty, discovery and community, which is more valuable than any one stat. We help artists and labels build fandoms that don’t just visit, they stick around.”
Source link