NFT.NYC brings new technology and old DJs to the city

Nearly 15,000 people signed up to attend NFT.NYC in New York City. The conference was based at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, and ran from June 21^st through 23^rd, 2022. Technology is evolving rapidly and so are the ways in which NFTs (non-fungible tokens) can be used to make money. The participants were there to promote their metavers, games, ticket platforms, pizza distribution models and all sorts of repetitions of art projects that can be collected.

This was a massive trade fair with container loads of brands that were given away on the exhibition floors while hundreds of speakers in the conference rooms and forums talked about every conceivable topic. Teams were in place from startups with significant risk funding, along with individuals who had hammered their credit cards to be in the room where the future was explained.

More than anything else, NFT.NYC was a networking event, where connections were made in the coffee lines, corridors and most importantly in the events spread throughout the city, organized by companies and artist collectives with deep pockets.

In this mix of old and new followers of the roads being forged towards the future, there was one constant: almost all events had a DJ in place. Champ Medici, a descendant of Cozomo de Medici (aka Snoop Dogg) played a set at the nightclub Marquee. His set was ruined by continuous commercials splashing across the screens while his music played. Shortly afterwards, Steve Aoki played his own set of wallpapers that enhanced the music.

At TAO, the Swedish Midsummer’s Night White Party was sponsored by YellowHeart, which is gaining traction in creating NFTs as entrance tickets and giving them special features such as switching from black and white to color when scanned into a room. That party was epic, in that the room was beautiful, the food and drink were excellent and there were both great DJs who gave sound and others simply in the room as party guests for the evening.

Tiesto played a big show at Sand Box with props and flashy pictures. Here, too, the room was full, and like the development pattern, the VIP space filled up before the main floor.

Cascade played what may have been the week’s highest set, also on Marquee. This was as professionally designed as a DJ set can be, with tightly adjusted sound and visuals. The club had absolute capacity.

At Somewhere Nowhere, 3Lau played a set late at night, with beautiful views of the city from their 38^nd floor windows. It was difficult to distinguish the fog in the room from the one drifting outside in the late night air.

Meanwhile, almost all art galleries housed even one NFT for sale open house, and apparently each open house had both an open bar and a DJ. Perhaps this conference will be renamed NFT.NYC.EDM in 2023.

Even the acclaimed Bored Apes Yacht Club concert series at Pier 17 hosted a surprisingly good set of Little Wayne followed by Snoop Dogg as their finale Thursday night. Snoop stood behind a DJ mixer and played his own songs while a full-scale variation show took place in front of him with tumblers, pole dancers and a fully articulated dancing Dr. Bombay, Snoop’s own Bored Ape. Snoop’s show included a glimpse of the real Eminem, and a full playback of the new cartoon video of Snoop and Eminem’s new song From D 2 The LBC.

Aside from the ever-present DJs, it was a really well-executed installation of Cooltopia, an interactive playground that took a video game concept out of cyberspace and into a vast array of games, an electronic scavenger hunt and excellent brand promotion in a large two-storey space of 5^th everyone.

This year’s NFT.NYC conference had something for everyone. Outside the central hub of the Marriott in Times Square, there were conversations in places all over the city, including the Great City Hall. Those present waved out over the city as they made new friendships and business connections. The events took place at Hudson Yards, at South Street Seaport, throughout the city and in large restaurants and banquet halls. NFT.NYC is an interesting riddle in that those who were there went to learn more about how cyberspace becomes where people gather. However, this learning process and the associated networking took place almost exclusively where people gathered as we once did before Covid, interacting as people always do: exchanging ideas, discussing dreams and telling stories of success and failure face to face in places. where shared drinks, food, music and physical works of art were exhibited.