Music Festival Adoption of Blockchain Initiatives.

Anything blockchain or crypto currency related seems to be a hot topic currently so what will the likely impact be on the music festival sector? There are some advantages to adoption of this technology that should benefit festival organisers, artists and event goers too here is a breakdown summary of what may be possible. 

This is merely and overview of the current situation and not intended as a detailed technical guide. The digital (crypto) currencies primarily allow financial transactions to made on the blockchain, a complex algorithm that has an irrefutable audit trail via a ledger to record these transactions. In addition, there are digital ‘coins’ and ‘tokens’ that also use blockchain enablers like Ethereum to perform transactions or smart contracts. Finally there are non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) which are digital assets also recorded on the blockchain. These three differences are important as their application in the music and festival ticketing business is slightly different.

Recently Live Nations (owner of Ticketmaster) has partnered with digital ticketing service FanDragon Technologies to use TixTo.Me, a blockchain-based digital entertainment wallet. This is in addition to their partnership with ‘Upgraded’ and it is likely that other event ticketing companies will be looking to provide similar services too as the rise in demand from ticket buyers increases with a desire to pay using a variety of crypto currencies. Event organisers are also keen to have all ticket buyers verified which can be achieved using the blockchain technology. The benefits are a reduction in fraud and elimination of ticket scalpers as well as providing an additional payment option for customers.

More importantly for artists are NFTs, which can hold unique assets like art, tickets, or trademarks instead of money. For performance artists NFT’s (in theory) can allow them to accurately and automatically update their revenue streams from recorded material, merch, touring, licensing, streaming royalties and live event performance royalties. The technology exists to do this but existing issues with the music business are preventing adoption because of copyright terms and agreements between music publishers and Performance Rights Organizations (PROs).

NFTs could potentially play a key role in music festivals too because artist bookings can made with blockchain smart contracts and fees can be transferred as soon as contractual obligations are met, funds are released without using the bank or any kind of financial intermediary. In addition, NFTs can hold tickets, which potentially eliminates ticket scalpers and in the United States Disruptor Records has created a blockchain-powered ticketing company called Yellowheart. Their mission is to eradicate scalping and put the power back into the hands of fans and artists so they can dictate where the money goes. 

Music festival organisers certainly have a variety of options available to them in the adoption of blockchain based technology. It's a fast-moving sector so it's worth investing time in understanding which elements will benefit the festival organisers and to test adoption for ticketing and artist bookings for example. 

For any event organiser planning their music festival using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their festival logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors guestlists and ticketing.

Image by Pete from Pixabay

<< Back to articles