Coachella to Auction Lifetime Festival Passes as NFTs

The 10 one-of-a-kind NFTs will include annual access to the festival, VIP experiences, and more

2019 Coachella Valley Music  Arts Festival
2019 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Coachella)

Coachella has announced a new partnership with cryptocurrency exchange FTX to auction off lifetime passes to the festival as NFTs. Dubbed the “Coachella Keys Collection,” it includes 10 one-of-one NFTs that grant lifetime festival access and VIP on-site experiences for the 2022 edition of Coachella, including front row access to the Coachella Stage, onstage access at the Sahara Tent, and dinner by a celebrity chef. Owners will receive passes to the festival every April and “access to Coachella-produced virtual experiences forever.”

“We’ve all seen how NFTs enable true ownership of art and media on the internet. We wanted to take it one step further and use NFTs to enable ownership of experiences in the real world, too,” said Sam Schoonover, Innovation Lead for Coachella. “Only blockchain technology can give us the unique ability to offer tradable lifetime passes to Coachella for the first time ever. We’re excited about building new utility and community for our fans with NFTs, and in FTX we found the partner that we trust to provide us with infrastructure and support to help us usher in this new frontier.”

Coachella’s inaugural NFT sale and auction goes live this Friday, February 4 at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) through Coachella’s official NFT marketplace. The NFTs are minted on Solana, a blockchain platform with industry-low energy consumption, and a portion of all sales will be donated to GiveDirectly, Lideres Campesinas, and Find Food Bank.

The full lineup for Coachella was announced earlier this month, with headliners Kanye West (officially billed as Ye), Billie Eilish, and Harry Styles topping the bill. Back in October, Coachella and Stagecoach festivals announced they would no longer require full vaccination for attendees at the 2022 festival.

Read “4 Takeaways from the Coachella 2022 Lineup” on the Pitch.

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