NFT events are broken. This fact should not be news to anyone within Web3. While the vast community of creators and builders has thrived on curating secondary activations around NFT.NYC and the like, the conferences and conventions themselves still fall short.

Of course, there are exceptions. When the NFT community itself is the planner for such NFT conventions (like VeeCon, The Gateway, etc.), Web3 rejoices. Perhaps this is because those on Web3 know what their peers want to see, feel, and experience. On the contrary, many popular NFT conventions seem to be a predatory echo of Web2 in Web3 clothing.

So why do we continue to populate these mainstream conferences and use them as our base of operations? Why isn’t the NFT space going its own way? This is the attitude of many within the community, perhaps most notably, the enigmatic artist known as Trippy. Through Trippy Labs, a multi-disciplinary Web3 creative studio, the anonymous creator aims to make Web3 events more, well, Web3. How? Producing experiences that are made for Y for the NFT space.

Beyond Basel

During the 2022 iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach, the who’s who of Web3 gathered at the tip of The Sunshine State to celebrate the exploits of the past year and look to a decentralized future. While nft now x Mana Common’s The Gateway was looking to welcome the blockchain community to its five-day Web3 metropolis, on the other side of town, Trippy Labs was creating a different vibe with Beyond Basel.

“With the state of the market, everything going on with FTX and everyone questioning the state of NFTs and cryptocurrency in general, it was very important for us to put this event together,” Trippy said in an interview with nft now. “I feel like [nft now] really crushed it during the day, so as soon as [The Gateway] we close, we start”.

Spanning an entire seven acres and featuring two outdoor stages and a 14,000 square foot gallery, Beyond Basel set out to be the ultimate Web3 festival. Packed with groundbreaking visual art exhibits, gaming events curated by FaZe Clan, an interactive voice-to-image AI booth, performances by influential electronic artists, and more, Beyond certainly set the bar for what a Web3 experience could be. from dusk to dawn (and maybe it should) be.

While the immersive art installations, cocktails, live music, and lasers galore all screamed “party,” by the time the three-day event was complete, it became even more apparent just how important IRL Web3 experiences are to blockchain culture. . If the true utility of NFT events is the benefit of face-to-face interconnectivity, then for strong and successful IRL experiences, the Web3 community must be their architect.

“[At NFT events] I meet people from the last year or two that I might have spent time with in the Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces during the first wave of NFTs. But I’m also mingling with a lot of artists from the last decade that I’ve maybe shared pieces with on Instagram or done a creative project with and never met in real life,” Trippy said. “I think that’s one of the underlying goals of events like Beyond Basel: to try to bring as many different creatives and technologists together as interesting minds.”

NFT events, created by Web3 communities

Contrary to popular belief (or the actions of bad actors), NFT events exist not to go to waste while speculating about which coins will go to the moon next, but rather for blockchain-based communities to come together and connect on the web. real life. This is precisely why Beyond Basel was widely marketed as a networking event and celebration of art rather than a party with star-studded headliners. In addition to shaping public perception so that NFT events can be communicated to their full potential, Trippy says that the success of these activations comes down to having an in-game appearance.

“A lot of the success around events comes from longevity in the NFT space, consistently showing up in that scene, and confidence,” Trippy said. “I did the same event last year at the same venue with a lot of the same partners with a not-so-big roster, but also a lot of the same artists. So [event success] It was kind of a continuation of both Trippy as a brand that thrived on social media for nearly a decade and Trippy Labs as a collective that specifically popped up in the NFT space over the past two years.”

While a long-lasting presence is certainly helpful in getting NFT events off the ground, a pattern emerges when we look at the successes and failures of these events in recent years. And it’s a pattern that represents NFT events created and run by people within the NFT community as being the most successful, accessible, and generally enjoyable. On the other hand, NFT events created by corporations or out-of-touch organizations are surprisingly expensive, confusing, and sometimes just plain downright ridiculous.

“Every time one of these conferences happens, people realize more and more that these events should give money directly back to the NFT community,” Trippy said. “If someone made a graph of the things that funnel money out of the community, and people saw how much money some of these conferences raised, I think they really wouldn’t be happy to support them.”

To reiterate: the fact that big name NFT events are broken shouldn’t be new to Web3 communities. But as far as what can be done to divert time (and money) away from the ecosystem, according to Trippy, it really is a matter of community action. “That model definitely has to change. If a group of us can line up more at events, like, ‘Oh, here are some of us who have hosted events at conferences. Can we all come together and change the calendar in the next few years?’ I think that will happen as time allows.”