Previously described as the ‘Woodstock of NFTs’, NFT.NYC is one of the biggest events on the NFT community calendar and this year was no exception (despite the crypto crash) with over 16,000 attendees, and over 1,500 speakers (including myself and Chris) who flock to the city for an NFT-filled week.
The conference is spread across the entire city through different official and unofficial events that happen throughout the week. The conference events take place in the Marriot Marquis in Times Square, situated across seven of its floors to provide different stages, booths, stalls, exhibitions, and space for networking. With such a packed schedule, this year’s talks were divided into themes including ‘future’, ‘art’, ‘collectibles’, ‘law’, ‘DAOs’, and ‘fashion’, which highlights the breadth of interest and knowledge emerging from the NFT space.
Moreover, delegates could choose from a selection of colored lanyards where the colors related to specific themes of the conference, making it easier to identify like-minded attendees. It also made it easier to see the distribution of different interests and personally I found there to be a huge number of yellow ‘collectible’ lanyards, despite spending most of my time in the ‘art’ stage - perhaps an indication of how closely melded these two themes are in the space.
Inside the Conference
Of course, the reason for attending was the chance to speak. Chris’s panel focused on bridging the traditional art world online chain with NFTs and included in the conversation was Peter Klarnet from Christies, Aaron Wilcon from Meta Musee, Amanda Cassett from Mojito & Serotonin, and Aisah Arif from MakersPlace. Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to discuss the role of collaborative and decentralized curating with Nadiya Taiga from Snark.Art, Tam Gyrn from Rally.io, and Michele Maccarone from Evo Art.
But more broadly, the programme offers a chance to see the emerging trends in the 2022. For example, there was more of an emphasis on photographers, photographic collectives, and photo-based NFT platforms on this year’s programme. Like photography’s difficult relationship with art history, this field has been underdeveloped and under-recognized in the NFT space but this year’s conference indicates that this could be changing.
Another notable trend is the discussion around crypto and NFT law practices, and with its own dedicated theme and lanyard, it is clear that this is a sector that is being taken seriously by the space. Likewise, it is clear that lawyers are also taking this space seriously. In one panel session a show of hands indicated that at least half of the audience came from a law background. Therefore, whilst in its infancy, it's reassuring to see crypto law becoming a more fully fledged field.
Beyond the Conference
Outside of the conference programme were hundreds of official and unofficial events with some of the larger events boasting headline acts such as Madonna, LCD Soundsystem, Snoop Dogg, and Eminen. Although, it was later noted that not all celebrity sightings were of the ‘authentic’ celebrity.
The real value of these events was in meeting people beyond the screen and hear about the new exciting projects coming up in the space. One such example where we had the opportunity to meet the team is the Bill Murray NFT project, which combines artwork with stories of Murray's life and membership to exclusive events. Having since sold out, projects such as this offer a potential framework for future storytelling NFT projects.
