Photo: Viberate
Can tokenizing the rights to a live performance solve future bookings? At Viberate, the blockchain-based music research and analytics platform, we’ll soon test the concept in partnership with digital asset marketplace Blockparty.
The following partner piece comes from Vasja Veber, co-founder of Viberate.
Say what you want about “crypto”, it’s nice to see it in the headlines again, and getting more people interested. We’re one of the survivors of the 2017 ICO hype, so naturally, we’re always looking for new ways to implement NFTs into our platform and business. And, as always, we want to do it our own way.
That brought us to creating a token that goes beyond the “collectible item” status – a token holding the rights to book a world-renowned DJ for a live performance. Our upcoming NFT drop will feature five NFTs with UMEK’s work. Specifically, three exclusive remixes of UMEK’s 1999 hit track “Lanicor”, one livestream performance, and one live gig. The owner of UMEK’s NFT will thus either purchase the rights to one of his original remixes, book UMEK for an exclusive online event, or book him for a real-life live performance. Which means, the buyer of such NFT can also be a fan who wants to book UMEK directly for, say, a private party, or show him support. Such opportunities are the ones that excite us the most.
We do hope the drop works, because the industry’s been in a sort of limbo this past year, and looking for new ways forward. With no live events, the artists try to make do by streaming their performances, but there’s no clear answer as to when and how things will return to normal – or even what ‘normal’ will mean by then. We hope to prove three points with our NFT drop: that any artist can make sure they have a booking waiting for them once live gigs are back in the picture, that the terms of that booking are securely agreed upon in advance, and that NFTs are a way for fans to support their favorite artists directly and transparently.
As for the future, we can say this: if the concept is validated and the industry shows interest, we plan on providing the option of gig token minting to nearly half a million music artists in our Viberate database, along with minting artist ID NFTs through a secure verification process. These ID NFTs will then act as a certificate of authenticity, reassuring the buyer that the contents indeed come from a verified artist, and not someone else selling their content. This is of course just one step in the possible NFT-rich future, so we hope others will join us in making them.
UMEK’s NFT drop will launch on Blockparty on Thursday, April 29th, 2021, at 3:00 pm EST (8:00 pm GMT+1).