Tribeca Film Festival Will Sell VIP Passes as NFTs

With the use cases for non-fungible tokens (NFT) continuing to expand, New York's Tribeca Film Festival is hopping on the trend by offering VIP passes as digital collectibles.

The VIP passes mark the annual film festival’s expansion into NFTs. They were developed in partnership with crypto exchange OKX. Minted on Ethereum, they will provide perks including special access to film screenings and invitations to exclusive events with the festival’s co-founders, Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro.

The NFTs cost $899 and are available for purchase directly through the Tribeca website using a credit card. More experienced NFT collectors can also pay for the passes in ether (ETH) through the OKX NFT marketplace. The design of the NFT artwork was inspired by the landscapes of Lower Manhattan, where this year’s festival will take place on June 7-18.

Nate Zou, head of Web3 products at OKX, told CoinDesk that the Seychelles-based exchange is excited to leverage blockchain technologies to reach new audiences and bring the event into Web3.

“[The Tribeca audience] is perfectly spread across all different demographics – from elder people to younger generations, across all kinds of work,” said Zou. “I think they’re a perfect sample for us to educate the general public about this technology.”

The VIP passes are part of a broader partnership with OKX, which signed on as the festival’s top sponsor last year.

It’s not the first time a major cultural event has commingled with crypto companies. Last year’s Grammy Awards were sponsored by crypto exchange Binance and music NFT marketplace OneOf.

Zou is optimistic that other events will incorporate NFTs as a part of their ticketing strategy.

“I think [the Tribeca festival] can be a great sample for us to try out with our partners in the future,” said Zou. “Whoever is interested can bring the new technology to their existing customer base and see what kind of spark it has.”