Heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold are long-time Web3 enthusiasts, launching their own Deathbats NFT series and building Tokengate ticket sales with Ticketmaster.
Now, in what the band calls the “culmination” of their Web3 efforts, they’ve launched Season Pass, a decentralized fan rewards platform that allows Avenged Sevenfold followers to earn rewards by participating in activities related to the band. It’s similar to the battle pass for the popular video game Fortnite, but with a focus on bands.
Frontman Matt Saunders (aka M. Shadows) said: Decryption By slowly introducing fans to the benefits of Web3, “fans become evangelists for Web3 because they go to other concerts and communities of other artists that they enjoy.”
“They can compare, ‘Which fandom is fun to be a part of?’ If you show all the positives,” he said, adding that Web3 challenges such as crypto wallet security and He added that they can be balanced. “If you take all the good and bad and weigh them all together, you just have to play the long game and be able to explain it to others,” he added.
Season pass.Image: Avenged Sevenfold
Built on the Ethereum Scaling Network polygon, Season Passes reward fans by redeeming their digital stubs for concert tickets, streaming the band’s music, and purchasing items equipped with NFC chips. These points will unlock tiered rewards ranging from digital collectibles to merchandise discounts to unreleased demo tracks. For the band’s most ardent fans, top-tier benefits include free concert tickets and meet-and-greets.
Season pass.Image: Avenged Sevenfold
These are distributed on a decentralized platform, so fans have true ownership of these perks and can be redeemed on third-party marketplaces. Avenged Sevenfold had the advantage of working with an already established fan base, Saunders said.
“We’ve had a 20-year friendship with them, and they knew we weren’t doing anything funky that would bring them into disrepute,” he said, adding the band ” “We took advantage of that friendship we had with them and gave them what we needed to do.” It’s even cooler to think about. ”
Saunders said many bands are sitting “on the sidelines” and watching to see how Avenged Sevenfold’s Web3 gamble unfolds. Two years after the release of the Deathbats Club NFT collection, and as the band plays the second leg of its LIBAD tour, the benefits of what he calls “a true come-to-Jesus moment” are beginning to become clear.
Now, he said, “fans are going to speak and artists are going to have to listen.”
Saunders expects the adoption of Web3 in the music industry to be driven by established bands like Avenged Sevenfold, alongside emerging artists with fans raised on cryptocurrencies. “The fact that we’re in our 40s and trying to do this almost breaks the matrix,” he added, “which would normally be the case, but the younger kids coming up are totally It’s going to create a different music industry – the music industry that we’re trying to create 25 years into our career.”
Although Avenged Sevenfold had to invest a lot of time and effort educating its fan base about Web3, he said the next generation of musicians and fans will grow up with the technology. “It’s going to be harder for us to convert an audience to this than it is for kids coming up who are trying to build an audience through this in a very Web3-native way,” he said.
Sanders said that for the time being, negative press surrounding NFTs and Web3 has made some artists wary of adopting the technology. “You just use it to pick yourself up and get through it,” he said. “If you don’t, you’re a slave to your fans, and I don’t think that’s a healthy relationship.”
He added that Avenged Sevenfold is “kind of an anomaly” given that at this stage in their career the band is “willing to shake the trees and shake the feathers of our fan base”. Ta.
“I could literally ride off into the sunset and keep writing similar records and just play arenas the rest of the day and be done with it,” Sanders said. Instead, he added, the band wants to prove that his Web3 has real utility for musicians and fans.
“We want to lead by example and help build a better internet and a better future for artists,” he said.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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