Description
Music festivals have been experimenting with digital technologies for several years – including livestreaming, digital ticketing, holographic performances, augmented reality and virtual reality. The imposed lockdowns and disruptions of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic accelerated interest in both virtual and hybrid events as festival promoters sought to adapt to changing circumstances, and to protect against the effects of future public health-related closures. At the same time, there was a burgeoning interest in Web3 technologies including Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. These technologies afford new developments within the music festival sector, including potential transformations in how festivals may be owned, managed, ticketed, marketed and experienced. In 2021 and 2022 there was considerable enthusiasm for the adoption of NFTs across the music industries and by numerous music festivals, but this early promise soon faded, particularly following the collapse of one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, in November 2022. Yet, the technology did not disappear completely from the festival sector, and there are renewed signs of interest once more, as the initial hype has dispersed and newer applications and ideas have emerged. In respect of Gartner’s (2022) ‘hype cycle’ we are perhaps entering the ‘slope of enlightenment’ with the potential to achieve a ‘plateau of productivity.’ However, the infrastructure underpinning the realities of working with virtual assets remains problematic, including volatility in cryptocurrency markets, and issues related to security, environmental sustainability and the public image of blockchain and NFT technologies. This presentation analyses the debates and explores a variety of examples of the use of NFTs in the music festival sector to illustrate its points. It highlights the challenges facing festival organisers in relation to intellectual property and addresses how they may employ NFT technology to create integrations between virtual assets and in real life experiences, and to build affective communities that engage with festivalgoers beyond the dates of the events themselves.| Period | 11 Jun 2025 → 13 Jun 2025 |
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| Event title | 16th International Music Business Research Days "Music 2025 and Music IP" |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Hatfield, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |