Re: The Future

Happy Tuesday. Did you catch the preview for Lil Nas X’s new music video? Parodying his ongoing court case with Nike, the artist is once again building a master class on how to generate hype. Today Alice is digging into the power of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

In Today’s Issue 💬

→ Unpacking the details behind KSI’s virtual event

→ How crypto fans crowdfunded $2M for a documentary about Ethereum

→ Why Deadmau5 is crowdsourcing his next music video through a video game

KSI Puts On A Show   

Was the $2.7 million entertainment spectacle worth the hype? 

Last Saturday, YouTuber/rapper KSI hosted The KSI Show, a digital ticketed event that was produced by start-up Moment House. The show was built around a “retelling of the story of KSI”, a creator whose influence has spanned more than 34 million subscribers and 8 billion views on YouTube. 

The event featured a mix of skits, musical acts, and special guests such as Yungblud, Anne-Marie, and the British YouTube group with 123 million combined subscribers, Sidemen. Logan Paul also made an appearance, with a trash talk segment between the two in a boxing ring, leaving fans speculating about a potential rematch.By The Numbers 

• $2.7 million → The production budget for The KSI Show

• 11 months → The time it took to prepare for the event

• $20 → The cost of a single ticket to the show

While ticket sales haven’t been made public, don't be surprised to see this event format make an appearance again soon. Moment House, which facilitated KSI’s event, is a creator company to watch. Next week the company is hosting Cody Ko and Noel Miller. 

Our Take

KSI’s foray into the virtual entertainment space is yet another piece of the wider gold rush for creator PPV content, which has conventionally been led by boxing. However, the key differentiator for The KSI Show is the breadth of appeal; the event covered music, entertainment and sport, and was priced at a competitive $20 per ticket, less than half that of the recent Battle Of The Platforms, which struggled to secure buys.

Filmmakers Raise $1.8 Million To Fund Ethereum Documentary

The team used crypto publishing platform Mirror + NFTs as a vehicle for fundraising 

The last year has been great for Mirror, the decentralized publishing platform that lets creators do everything from split earnings amongst collaborators to selling NFTs. Now, the platform can crowdfund too. Over the last week, filmmakers have raised nearly $2 million on the platform to fund a documentary about the rise of Ethereum, which will feature the network’s co-creator, Vitalik Buterin, and Aya Miyaguchi, the executive director of the Ethereum Foundation.

A first-of-its-kind documentary, the fundraiser took a variation to the standard Kickstarter approach, offering NFTs and participation in a DAO to those who donated. Thanks to the eager support of the community, they surpassed their fundraising goal in just 3 days.

Our Take

Cutting out the middleman and raising directly from your fans was always a winning formula, but giving fans a piece of the pie using NFTs and crypto has the potential to supercharge the future of creator/supporter collaboration.

Deadmau5 Crowdsources His Next Music Video Through a Video Game

The DJ invites fans to create a virtual world to backdrop his next release

Producer/DJ Deadmau5 has partnered with developer Manticore Games to invite fans to build digital worlds for his upcoming single “When The Summer Dies.” Using Manticore’s gaming platform, the producer will select one fan-made world to serve as the backdrop for his next music video. Additionally, participating fans will be entered into a $50,000 prize pool, plus lifetime VIP passes and meet-and-greets for future shows.

Our Take

Virtual events are taking off even as the world opens back up. Roblox x Lil Nas X and Fortnite x Travis Scott have shown that taking concerts online doesn’t just make for a more unique experience, it also lets creators and fans collaborate side by side in building the future of entertainment.

🔥 In Other News

• TikTok is hosting workshops for Small Businesses across the United States  

• YouTube Shorts launched its first official dance challenge in collaboration with BTS

• Amazon is launching a platform to court fiction creators

• The New York Times’ Taylor Lorenz covers TikTok’s video resume feature