On March 5, the Coachella music festival announced the launch of Coachella Keepsakes, a series of three NFT collections produced in partnership with NFT marketplace OpenSea.
The collections, based on the Avalanche blockchain, will act as access passes to exclusive VIP areas of the festival, as well as to limited-edition holder-only merchandise.
“Our collaboration with OpenSea begins a new chapter in how we use NFTs to provide unique custom experiences for Coachella in real life and online,” Sam Schoonover, Innovation Lead for Coachella, said in a statement. “We’re moving towards a future where Coachella isn’t just an event you attend, but an experience you can own and shape based on the digital tokens in your possession. We’re enabling this future with OpenSea, a trusted and secure marketplace that helps us safely provide these new opportunities to fans,” he said.
The first Keepsake, launching March 5 at 10 am PST, is called The VIP Pass + Oasis Lounge Keepsake. Available for either weekend of the festival, the pass unlocks access to the holder-only Oasis Lounge, a peaceful space offering a range of complimentary drinks and a shaded lounge for members.
Priced at $1,499 each, 1,000 of the tokens will be available for purchase until April 1 at a dedicated collection page on OpenSea.
The second drop in the series, “Canvas Welcome Box Keepsake,” launches on March 25 and will offer unique merchandise, digital content, and Rose Garden VIP area access.
An artist collaboration keepsake, the final Coachella drop, will launch in mid-April, with the artist’s identity and holder benefits to be announced near the end of March.
“We are thrilled to embark on this journey with Coachella, a festival that has dominated the cultural zeitgeist for over two decades,” Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, said in a statement. “Since our inception in 2017, we’ve been at the forefront of the NFT revolution, witnessing firsthand the expansion of digital ownership and its evolving utilities. Our partnership with Coachella represents a significant milestone, uniting the digital with the physical in ways that promise to enrich the festival experience and usher in a new paradigm in the live event and ticketing industry.”
Real World “In-Game Experiences”
To Schoonover, the notion of bringing NFTs into the celebrated Coachella festival isn’t an unusual one; the Keepsakes like the crates we buy in video games to get benefits and upgrades and enhance our experience, he told nft now.
“Coachella is a lot like a mixed reality game, where you can choose your own adventure and interact with a wide variety of creative experiences. We wanted to take this idea to the next level and create virtual assets inspired by Coachella’s creative spirit and history, and tie those to real-world power-ups at the festival. It’s a clear value-add for guests and infuses a new dimension of storytelling to the festival journey,” he said in an email interview.
Coming out of a long bear market when mainstream media declared NFTs dead, Schoonover saw the partnership as an opportunity to educate the Coachella team and community on the potential of NFTs to heighten the festival experience. “When people think of NFTs, they generally still think of them as PFPs. So, the educational process around what else NFTs can do and be has been an important part of this campaign and partnership. We’re excited to work on new use cases,” he told us.
“When people think of NFTs, they generally still think of them as PFPs. So, the educational process around what else NFTs can do and be has been an important part of this campaign and partnership.”
sam schoonover, Coachella innovation lead
“Our hope is simple: that Keepsakes holders have a unique and amazing experience at the festival. It’s our goal to offer a more customized experience to fans based on the tokens they have purchased or earned, and this is the first step in that direction,” he said.
The video art for the Keepsakes, depicting translucent, iridescent shells in motion, was designed with Coachella’s rich social and natural history in mind. “It has been said that the name ‘Coachella’ actually comes from a misspelling by mapmakers of the Spanish word’ conchilla,’ which means ‘little shell.’ Millions of years ago, the Coachella Valley sat beneath a vast body of water. When the desert’s first inhabitants arrived, they came to find remnants of this ancient sea, including shells scattered amongst the landscape. We were inspired by this history and wanted to connect it to our modern experience. Our story is that a shell from this forgotten sea has been discovered deep beneath the fields, adorned with special powers that unlock never before seen Coachella experiences,” Schoonover explained.
Cultural Partnerships
Given that the Keepsakes are likely to be a desirable deal for buyers, with a price not much higher than buying a standalone VIP ticket, OpenSea’s Devin Finzer has worked with Coachella to ensure that the buying experience will be a smooth one—even for people who have never handled crypto before—via OpenSea’s new email-only signup flow and credit card purchasing options.
“Our goal is to make interacting with OpenSea as simple as interacting with Amazon. Earlier this year, we introduced an easy-to-use wallet that requires only an email to sign up. We also enabled broad pay-with-fiat options for buyers to purchase NFTs with just their normal credit card. Now, on OpenSea, mainstream users will be able to simply onboard onto the marketplace without the hassles that have historically driven away a non-crypto native audience. Those interested in Keepsake, whether crypto native or new to our space, don’t have to worry about any complicated onboarding or payment processes—simply enter an email and explore the collection from there,” he told nft now over email.
“Our goal is to make interacting with OpenSea as simple as interacting with Amazon.”
devin finzer, opensea ceo
The partnership may hint at OpenSea’s future strategic objectives during a challenging period in its development when much of the overall NFT volume has moved to competitors like Magic Eden and Blur—and to blockchains like Ordinals and Solana. When asked about OpenSea’s plans to reclaim the top spot in market share and the decision to move to optional creator royalties, Finzer chose not to comment.
Although users clamor for an OpenSea token drop and incentive programs for traders, OpenSea may be looking forward to onboarding those who are new to crypto and reaching broader audiences with high-profile partnerships.
“We believe 2024 opens the door to more exciting opportunities to create fun and unique experiences for larger audiences, and this applies to both web3 native and traditional brands and developers,” Finzer said. “The infrastructure is more reliable, the UIs are easier to use, and transaction costs are lower. Coachella is a pioneer in bringing this together to unlock an exceptional experience, and we think this is just the beginning. We are excited to work with more partners like them now that the building blocks are in place, but we also expect to see more existing creators in the web3 community also level up and reach new audiences. Entertainment, especially gaming, events, and fashion, are all exciting and key focus areas for us now, and these represent a mix of web3-native and traditional brands. and we expect to see even more cross-over collabs pop that redefine what’s possible.”
The post Coachella Partners With OpenSea To Launch Access-Unlocking NFT Collections appeared first on nft now.