The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will, for the first time, sell lifetime guest passes in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called the Coachella Keys Collection. A total of 10 tokens will be auctioned, including festival passes each year and VIP experiences in 2022, including headliners Billie Eilish, Kanye West and Harry Styles, as seen front row on the Coachella Stage, on- access to the stage in the Sahara tent and dinner with a celebrity chef in the Rose Garden.
“We have all seen how NFTs enable true ownership of art and media on the internet,” said Coachella Innovation Lead Sam Schoonover in a statement shared with NME. “We wanted to go one step further and use NFT to enable ownership of real-world experiences as well.
In addition to the Coachella Key Auction, which kicks off on February 4, Coachella is also offering two collections of NFTs that include digital collectibles and physical posters and photo books, all through the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
There are 10,000 items each in the Sights & Sounds Collection (priced at $60 or approximately Rs. 5,000), which features 10 digital images of the festival and a physical print of one of the 10. There are only 1,000 NFTs in the Desert Collection Reflection (priced at $180 or approximately Rs. 13,500), which includes one of 10 digital versions of a Coachella poster by Emek and a copy of the photo book called “Coachella | The Photographs 1999-2019.
FTX.US President Brett Harrison added, “Not only are we excited to partner with a forward-thinking, progressive music festival at Coachella, but also to work together to make the world a better place.
While Ethereum is currently the leading platform for NFT collectibles, Solana has become a growing alternative due to faster transactions, lower fees, and less environmental impact. Schoonover cited the latter two as key reasons why Coachella chose Solana, particularly for shoppers who may be interacting with NFT for the first time.
