Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) is a five-day music festival and conference held annually in Amsterdam, Netherlands, focusing on electronic dance music (EDM). It features performances by some of the biggest names in EDM and up-and-coming artists and attracts thousands of music fans worldwide. In addition, the conference component of ADE provides a platform for industry professionals to network, learn about the latest developments in the music industry, and attend workshops, seminars, and panel discussions.

In October, we went to ADE 2022 to scout the involvement of NFTs in this music industry and to perceive the artist's knowledge in the web3 ecosystem.
We were very positively surprised about the movement around NFT and blockchain, although the development around web3 is still in an early stage.
During our intensive three days there, we participated in 11 panels related to the blockchain with different content, from community to NFT music right, through live minting during the DJ set.

We found it interesting that many DJs (like Richie Hawtin in the picture) are experimenting with NFTs and pushing this technology's boundaries. Overall we noticed that NFTs applied to music are a perfect fit, and more labels, artists, and event organizers are heading that way. It was tangible that many people at ADE see NFT and, more largely, web3 as the industry's future; even if there are many misconceptions about what they are and how they can be used.

During the next months, we sent a survey to event organizers worldwide to better know the NFT understanding between them and to get ourselves an idea about what problems the organizers are facing with ticketing and what the obstacles are for them to letting NFTs enter their world.
To get an idea about the landscape, we collected answers from Event Organizers that host events with 200 to 1000 people from Asia, Europe, and South America.
Here is what we have discovered.

We wanted to understand the awareness of NFTs in the event industry and how well they know about it. It's impressive that87% of event organizers know about NFTs.This means that it is a thing.

Then we explore the main problems that event organizers face with their ticket organization, anything from the platform they use to the relationship with the buyers. Interesting to notice that75% think the ticket platforms are too expensive(for the size of the events). Also,50% of them have felt to have poor or no relationship with their community.

We asked what the problem with the current ticketing platform system is, and an impressive87% stated that it is too expensive, and70% of them said that they could not control the secondary market, ending up with alack of customization.

At this point, we asked what they would like NFTs for other than tickets. Meanings, if you would like to create NFTs for your event, what utilities would you like to give it? At this point, 75% would like to create membership NFT to connect with their fans, and 63% would like to attach content to their NFTs(download videos of the event, records from it, and more).

Then, we wanted to understand if event organizers are willing to use the NFTs for their events. Even though they are very interested in it, most have serious doubts about using NFTs for their community

Finally, we asked why is that. What could be the challenges that they would face to introduce an NFT system for their events?

Well, here we see how scary new technologies can be, so 87% think that NFTs are too new to use them largely, and 86% instead believe that there could be an issue with managing the revenue in cryptocurrency for the lack of certainty. Or for the lack of legislation around it?

A few numbers but still consistent of 63% and 61% think NFTs are still complicated to buy for users, so it is paying in cryptocurrency.

In conclusion, we thought NFT Tickets would be a great opportunity in the music industry, but it seems that people are more interested in creating fan-based memberships.