The Academy of Digital Art, Sciences, & Culture (ADASC) and Larry Namer are excited to announce the launch of its new NFT Membership Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and The Annual NFTYS Awards Gala (NFTYS) on June 14, 2023 in The NIKO Theatre metaverse layer at Worre Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The ADASC DAO NFT Membership allows members to participate in the organization’s decision-making processes and to earn rewards for their contributions to the community. This new DAO will create a collaborative and inclusive environment for artists, technologists, and cultural innovators working with NFTs and the Web3 space.
“ADASC is committed to fostering a vibrant, diverse, and innovative community that celebrates achievement in an agnostic way and becomes a platform for all protocols to shine when deserved,” said Larry Namer, Co-Executive Producer of The NFTYS and founding member of ADASC. “The launch of the NFT membership DAO and the annual NFTYS Awards Gala is a testament to this commitment. We invite all stakeholders of the global Web3 and entertainment community to join us in celebrating the achievements and contributions of their peers at this exciting annual event.”
Formidable Men had the opportunity to speak with Larry Namer, Founder of E! Network and Chris J. Snook, the visionary creator of “The NFTYS” who have joined forces for this spectacular event.
FMM: Larry, Tell us about the Academy of Digital, Art, Sciences, & Culture and what makes it unique.
The Academy was born just this year when Chris and I met at a blockchain event in Manila. I was always astounded by the bad information people were getting and only seeing press about the bad stuff when there is so much good coming out of NFTs, blockchain, and Metaverse. Chris mentioned that he always wanted to do an awards show that celebrated the accomplishments in these areas, but didn’t move on it because it would mean a big awards show that blended the best of Hollywood with the best of the emerging Web3 space and become the pre-eminent platform for celebrating the best creators and innovators in the new economy and culture. He said he had been sitting on the trademark for about 18 months and would have to find someone who shared the vision and knew how to do the Hollywood quality stuff. So, we found each other through serendipity on the other side of the planet.
In developing the concept we both felt that this can’t be grandma’s award show from the last century, or something on the side of a crypto-conference, and needed to not just celebrate the new innovations and rising stars, but also had to utilize today’s modern technologies to make the show itself more interactive and relevant to today’s younger audiences, while still being entertaining to the older audiences that have grown tired of the same old same old.
Several of the things we wanted to accomplish with The NFTYS was a platform for discovery and recognition and to make this dream come true related to the governance model of the nominations and award grants itself as well as the use of funds from the proceeds of the show. We chose to form ADASC as the governing organization under a DAO structure that was truly diversified, democratic, and inclusive from its founding DNA and recognize that this cant be just US centric and must recognize a global footprint of innovators, artists, and creatives.
We have started building out the initial two-dozen DAO founding members from a cross-industry, ethnographic, and geographical mix and will move into a full governance structure over the next 5 year roadmap which will be published very soon when we issue the first 24 founding member tokens later this month. The NFTY Annual Awards Gala will be our first of what we anticipate will be multiple complementary platforms of engagement and discovery, and 50% of the profits from the NFTYS each year go back to the DAO for future budgeting and grant opportunities that are to be developed by the community of Academy members alongside us in the coming years. We are moving slowly on adding folks in the near term as we want to make sure we get the mix right and work out the wrinkles for a sustainable vision that will far surpass our lifetimes.
FMM: Larry, the world is changing at a rapid pace. How important is Web3, Blockchain, and NFT’s in the success of business today?
Web 3, blockchain. And NFT’s are going to be a growing part of the mix. They don’t fully replace what exists today but rather supplement them and provide viable alternatives that are consistent with what the new technologies and methodologies allow. Anyone who ignores these is going to regret it. It sort of reminds me when digital music became a reality and the music industry spent years fighting it rather than embracing it.
FMM: Larry, What have you seen as missing in the award shows? Tell us about the NFTY’s Pre-eminent Web3 Innovations Awards Gala and why this is timely?
From what I have seen in recent years the awards shows have been politicized to a great extent. They are supposed to recognize accomplishment not cater to political opinion. The audience wants to feel entertained and engaged and I think some of the existing shows have lost sight of that. Also they have stuck to the same tired old formats and not adopted the new technologies and environmental changes in the media world. For example, when I started in the business the US dominated the Box Office tremendously. Now that has changed and the US is still strong but no longer such a dominant percentage of the revenues. In fact the US is not even the number one box office country in the world. Webs 3, NFT’s, and Blockchain will change the way we live, work and play yet existing awards shows act like it doesn’t exist.
Larry kicks off the list of notable founding DAO members with voting and nomination rights, which include Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, co-inventors of the blockchain; Martin Pompadur, Former GM at ABC, Chairman at Metan Global; Lawrence Kasanoff, Chairman/CEO of Threshold Entertainment Group; Ninon Aprea, Actress and Former Board Member of SAG; Gerard Dache, Executive Director, Government Blockchain Association; Amy James, Executive Director of Web3 Working Group and co-inventor of Open Index Protocol; Rachel Pether CFA, Executive Board at Haqq Network and Fintech.TV anchor; Vince Molinari, CEO of Fintech.TV; Gavin Gillas, CEO of Project Venkman; Kyle Wiley, Founder of Connector Labs; Dr. Greg Reid, award-winning author and film producer; Ben DeJesus, Partner at NGL Collective; Winston Ma, Co-founder of Cloudtree Ventures; Marina Worre, CEO of Worre Studios; Travis Wright of Web3 Media Group; IP3; Donald Lim, Blockchain Council of the Philippines, Seth Shapiro, Amanda Russell, and Dr. Jennifer Lee, to name a few. Over the next 5 years, a total of 150 top- tier memberships will be distributed via nomination and referral from this foundational membership.
FMM: Chris, How excited are you for this show? Any favorite nominees?
We are very excited about this as I think that it is going to become a mainstay in the awards circuit and hopefully change the way some of the older events tackle the issues. More importantly it will serve to educate and accelerate the good things that can come from the widespread adoption of these things. We are being very careful not to influence the decision process with our personal preferences. Not only are we enlisting the academy members in this process (which will expand with a bit of time) but also using all the tech available to us, like AI, to make it as diverse and inclusive as possible. We want to be fair and just and have the awards given out strictly on merit.
FMM: Chris, What are the cool tech devices that will make this show spectacular?
The NIKO Theatre at Worre Studio is a metaverse layer and IRL hybrid experience that sits on top of the state-of-the-industry unique power of the Worre Studio in Las Vegas. The 500,000+ capacity of the interactive tickets that can be engaged in individualized virtual front row seats with zero latency around the world in up to 34 languages with real-time translation at less than 33ms allow everyone to have the content localized to their region while participating in a global event in real time. In addition, we will have 180 VIP in-studio guests (including the finalist nominees up for each category watching and participating on the red carpet, the live broadcast, and the IRL/metaverse DJ afterparty. The studio has screens that make for a 360 surround around a 45 foot diameter stage with over 13 embedded unreal5 engine cameras in the screens to allow for a truly immersive viewing experience on the other end where people called out by presenters or hosts on stage during the broadcast can be pinned face to face with the people on stage and even part of a virtual mosh pit during the music performances while watching on anything from a tablet or smart phone at home. Brand partners and performers will be doing selective in-show drops that can be claimed by each guest without leaving the stream on their NIKO Theatre dashboard as they continue to watch. I could go on and on, but you get the idea and now you just have to make sure you have one of those tickets to the live broadcast June 14 2023. They will be priced at every budget between $5-$1500 and come with a variety of collectible value and utilities. In addition we will be announcing several distribution partnerships in a couple of countries where we will not sell tickets to the live broadcast but provide their large networks a feed that will be an exclusive replay in market of the event localized for their purposes. We anticipate this will bring the first year audience of viewers north of 2 million globally.
FMM: Chris, What do you want to say to the stakeholders of the global Web3 and entertainment community?
We want to say, “this is your awards show and your academy, we are just getting things started but we need you all to make sure this grows into all that it can and should be. Year one won’t be perfect but together we can create the template for how it should be done.”
A NFTY is an Award presented, which has been minted with awardee metadata that makes achievements recognizable in Web3, blockchain, and cultural metaverse. The show will feature awards in categories such as Artistic Excellence, Technical Innovation, Cross-Collaborative I.P. Drops, Social Good, Most Impactful Community, AI/VR/AR Integration Excellence, and more, all while keeping score of which chains are represented by the number of nominations and awards on a public immutable ledger for historical posterity.
The NFTYS will be broadcasted globally via on-demand pay-per-view at a variety of ticket access levels, giving NFT enthusiasts and the general public the opportunity to join in the celebration, be inspired to learn, and interact within the broadcast from anywhere in the world with The NIKO Theatre metaverse layer at Worre Studios.