Science, Technology, and Innovation

Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival will, for the first time, sell lifetime guest passes int the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called the Coachella Keys Collection. A total of 10 tokens will be auctioned off, which will include passes to the festival every year and VIP experiences in 2022 — which features headliners Billie Eilish, Kanye West, and Harry Styles — like front-row views at the Coachella Stage, on-stage access at the Sahara Tent, and a celebrity chef dinner at the Rose Garden.

“We’ve all seen how NFTs enable true ownership of art and media on the Internet,” Sam Schoonover, Innovation Lead for Coachella, said in a statement shared with NME. “We wanted to take it one step further and use NFTs to enable ownership of experiences in the real world, too.”

In addition to the Coachella Keys Auction, which starts on February 4, Coachella is also offering two NFT collections that feature digital collectibles and physical posters and photo books, all through the FTX crypto exchange. There are 10,000 items each on the Sights & Sounds Collection (priced at $60 or roughly Rs. 5,000), which features 10 digital festival images and a physical print of one of the 10. There are only 1,000 NFTs in the Desert Reflection Collection (priced at $180 or roughly Rs. 13,500), which includes one of 10 digital renditions of a Coachella poster by Emek and a copy of the photo book named “Coachella | The Photographs 1999-2019”.

FTX. US President Brett Harrison added, “Not only are we excited to partner with a progressive forward-thinking music festival in Coachella, but also working together to make the world a better place.”

While Ethereum is currently the leading platform for NFT collectibles, Solana has emerged as a rising alternative due to speedier transactions, lower fees, and lesser environmental impact. Schoonover cited the last two as key reasons that Coachella chose Solana, particularly for buyers who may be interacting with NFTs for the very first time.