Maybe it is down to initialism attracting initialism, but the stars of the EDM world really seem to love NFTs. 3LAU and Steve Aoki have been among the biggest earners here, but deadmau5 was an early (for the music business) adopter of NFTs, jumping on board at the end of 2020. That was a few months before Grimes sold her digital art as NFTs for $6m and really started the music business gold rush here.
If EDM is, in part, about mechanical repetition then it is only fitting that deadmau5 comes back again to the NFT well. This time he is linking it to his return to live shows.
He is doing two concerts (on 4th and 5th November) at Red Rock, just outside Denver, and calling them, with no desire to hide his glowstick under a bushel, Day Of The Deadmau5. (Shouldn’t that be “days” (plural) given he is doing two shows?)
He is offering VIP packages to these shows as NFTs and they went on sale on 19th August through a bespoke deadmau5 store on NFT.Kred. There were 100 VIP packages being sold as NFTs for each show.
“VIP Experience NFTs sold in the marketplace can be redeemed to RSVP for exclusive VIP access & to meet deadmau5 at Red Rocks,” explains the press release on it all. “The NFTs are transferable prior to redemption, making it easy for collectors/fans to resell on the secondary market should they not be able to attend.” Buyers also get an exclusive merchandise bundle.
The terminology being used here is particularly interesting. The set up is targeted not just at fans but also “collectors” and they are able (encouraged, even) to resell them on the secondary market (but they only have a few months to do so before the shows happen).
There are a lot of uncertainties here. Will deadmau5 stand to get a cut if someone buys the EDM VIP NFT and is able to flip it for a profit? Is this a testing of the waters to see if artists put some level of control on the secondary market and also benefit financially from resales?
There is, of course, a guarantee of authenticity when selling concert tickets as NFTs, so anyone buying them will know they are not being sold a dud. But the financial implications possibly underpinning it all is perhaps the most fascinating part of this entire undertaking.
