In the spirit of honest debate, I want to respond to this… I believe you can’t go back and change a snapshot vote so while I’m responding to you Wes, my response is more for anyone else who’s reading the forum and trying to make a decision…
I apologize if the plan for the event was not explained adequately but I will summarize the highlights in a few bullets.
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It’s a 13 hour event, which allows us enough time to showcase our technology during the day and have a fun party at night. The daytime portion is actually the most important part so the goal for this is the furthest thing from just throwing a cool party for ourselves.
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Unlike previous phsyical pop-ups, this will be focused on showcasing our metaverse team’s work and the wearables standard. A room with floor to ceiling projections on all walls is a perfect canvas for our metaverse team to create an experience that is actually blending reality with the digital world, which is what we’re all about.
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I imagine the event being integrated with a simultaneous digital event in the Metaverse. So while being a dope physical event, it will also be a standalone digital event occurring on the Metaverse platform of our choice.
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We will sell only 1-2 exclusive items, IMO ideally a shirt designed in collaboration with a hyped NFT artist. Physical item will obviously be bundled with the wearable that the buyer could redeem to their wallet… This is a scenario where we can actually create secondary market demand for a Metafactory wearable with people who aren’t currently aware of Metafactory, and that is something very important to consider. We don’t have to deal with a ton of inventory like how it was at ETH Denver…
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The event will feature NFTs by various artists for sale via IRL art, with a portion of revenue being shared with Metafactory.
I hope that summary gave some clarity at least on how the financial cost of the event will likely be offset by sales of both our physical item bundled with wearables & direct NFT sales at the event.
It is true that certain amount of detail needs to be fleshed out still for structuring the day, in terms of programming. I imagine we will have speakers, dedicated timeslots to demonstrate various aspects of the tech… Some amount of time would be dedicated to other partners like Webaverse or Kong…
Deadline remains NFT.NYC. But instead of pooling all human resources into event setup, we could focus on longterm content + assets that won’t just disappear after one night.
It makes a lot of sense to think about this event as a video & photo content production as well. The piece Ryan made about us at ETH Denver was awesome, but a video of this proposed NFT NYC event would be like that on steroids. It would cast us in a good light & add some pop via the high-end production value of the space, and the assembled crowd. Same goes for photography of the event, which would easily replace the photoshoot that is currently on our website. These things are assets with longevity, and honestly so are all of the materials we would prepare in advance of the event to showcase our technology.
Additional positives that haven’t been mentioned:
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Possibility of press coverage. It’s never a guarantee, but digital fashion is getting a ton of buzz right now and we deserve to be in the mix of that mainstream attention. Although we’re not the biggest name YET, it is very easy to spin a narrative for us as the face of an open source Metaverse, the real open internet alternative to the Zuckverse. The event & resulting photos would make that story something that a major NY publication could actually run (not as a paid piece).
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VC’s will be around. If we’re doing a raise, (which I don’t even personally want yet because I need to accumulate more ROBOT xD) a successful event could really increase our perceived valuation at a crucial moment.
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Inclusion of non-crypto people at our event. This is a big intangible and will lend some credence to the ‘fashion’ side of what we’re doing.
Downsides of a digital-only event:
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Inaccessible / Irrelevant to a vast majority of people. If we’re going to be successful in our goals, we need to bring new people into the space. Cannot get stuck in a web3 bubble.
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Release of our wearables will happen anyway but take place in a less exciting context. Only “power-users” will be able to truly use our wearables at first, so we need to visually demonstrate their utility and do outreach to onboard as much as possible.
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Incredibly fast pace of crypto narrative cycle, project lifecycle means that we are dealing with a ticking clock. We have an early mover advantage, strong ties with the Ethereum community… Something to capitalize on sooner rather than later.
Overall, I understand where you’re coming from, but I have a very different opinion. I see the event as a low downside, a good deal resource-wise when you consider that the event generates amazing content and also has a chance at turning a profit, and asymmetric upside with a lot of potentially amazing outcomes from doing this.
My thing is, as far as a solid alternative plan for NFT NYC, apart from this, I haven’t seen anything proposed. The truck was cool but was also expensive and we can’t do the same thing two years in a row, plus it’s all physical. A digital event can happen anytime and shouldn’t be considered a replacement for a presence at a physical NFT conference in New York. I agree that it would have been nice if we had this idea in Denver in February and immediately began making moves to plan and organize it. But with exactly 2 months, we have enough time.
I say we SEND IT and I think we’ll be vey happy we did (insert relevant Wayne Gretzky quote here)