The city of Berkeley is no stranger to the alternative and experimental. This attitude lives on as UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre gears up to host Our Music Festival, the first music fest “powered by a cryptocurrency.”
The heady California city of Berkeley is historically associated with experimental and countercultural values. Berkeley will continue this tradition by hosting the world’s first crypto-powered music festival on Saturday, October 20th. The chosen venue is the legendary Greek Theatre at the University of California, Berkeley. Officially named the Hearst Greek Theatre, the 8,500 capacity venue was opened in 1903 after being built with funds from newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.
Bumpin’ in the Bay
The Bay Area festival will utilize its own cryptocurrency, OMF Token. The token “[…] will be redeemable for products, services, and experiences (physical, digital & virtual) within the network.”
The website for the Greek Theatre notes that the token will be used for a slew of services and “branded events.”
OMF will establish the gateway for all transactions between consumers, artists and event organizers that participate in festival ecosystems: merchandising, production, hospitality, food and beverage service, brand sponsors, transportation – the possibilities are endless.
The festival’s token isn’t simply used for on-site features. In the future, OMF “[…] hopes to develop technology that will also mitigate ticket inflation, counterfeiting and scalping.”
The line-up for the one-day festival includes Zedd, Big Sean, 3Lau, Matt and Kim, and Charlotte Lawrence. At the time of writing, three of the four general admission tiers have been sold out, while one out of three VIP packages have likewise sold out.
Time Out reports that the festival will also include a “crypto corner,” where participants can engage top blockchain companies and learn more about crypto.
Crypto Begins to Find its Tune in the Music World
The Berkeley festival has the potential to set the bar for future festivals hoping to incorporate a crypto-ecosystem. Surprisingly, the behemoth US music festivals like Bonnaroo and Coachella have yet to embrace crypto — although Indio, California, the home of Coachella, does maintain a nearby crypto ATM.
Music festivals aren’t the only happenings where crypto has been spotted. Bitcoinist reported on a Bitcoin (BTC) 00 installation at this year’s Burning Man festival. It seems that alternative and experimental ways of thinking about the status quo serve as a bridge between the crypto community and the festival crowd.
Bitcoinist has also written on the solutions blockchain tech offers the music industry. The technology promises to give musicians and artists increased autonomy and control over their work. Besides improving transactions between artists and listeners, a handful of blockchain-based music platforms have also emerged.
It’s entirely reasonable to expect larger music festivals to embrace crypto in the near-future. Besides serving as an ecosystem for hosting festivals, crypto also embodies the innovative and envelope-pushing values upon which art and music festivals are built.
Will you be attending Our Music Festival in Berkeley later this month? How can crypto transform the concert-going experience, as well as the music scene? Let us know in the comments below!
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Images courtesy of Bitcoinist archives, Time Out!.
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