Antidote: A Virtual Festival You Don't Want To Miss!

Web3 is changing the way we interact with technology and with each other, and there’s a growing demand for events that help people learn more about it. While there are plenty of great physical Tezos events that you should attend if you are able to (i.e. the upcoming TezDev event in Paris), oftentimes it’s hard for people to attend as the Tezos community is global and these events are spread out all over the world.

That’s where the Antidote festival comes in. This virtual event is specifically designed to fill this void, and to create a space where people can learn about Web3 in a fun and interactive way regardless of where they are in the world.

To learn more about this event, I got in contact with “Beets” who is the founder of the HERE AND NOW project and organizer of the Antidote Virtual Festival. Let’s take a look at the Q&A:

@WideawakeBeets

What is Antidote?

Antidote is a virtual festival for everyone. It brings together the best of the best in Web3, featuring industry-leading panelists, artists, groundbreaking innovators, and live performances. The entire festival takes place in HERE & NOW’s custom made galleries in oncyber. Mostly, though we just want to put on a good time during these turbulent times and bring people together.

How did you come up with it and what is the goal behind it?

Being isolated and seeing events like NFT NYC or Art Basel Miami is tough for the majority of artists and collectors around the world. The FOMO is real! You feel like you don’t have the same access or opportunity. So we thought let’s just put on our own event where everyone can come.

You’ve been building the ‘HERE AND NOW’ project on Tezos and collaborating with a lot of Tezos artists, what made you choose Tezos for your work?

I was drawn to the underground vibe of Tezos where experimentation and risk taking was rewarded. There’s something about the Tezos art scene that connects to the way I’ve always created art. I get bored quickly, and don’t like to repeat myself, and I think that experimentation is something that Tezos fosters.

Could you tell us about the lineup of artists and creators participating in your virtual festival?

Imagine Antidote like a music festival, with multiple stages happening simultaneously. We have panels, live music, art drops, curations, art tours and almost all the platforms have a space they’re doing something in! It’s going to be epic. We’ve got the likes of Zancan, Sutu, Goldcat, Strano, Objkt, fx(hash)… honestly the list is insane.

How long will it be live for? Will it be recorded?

The whole event will last for 5 hours and users will be able to portal from one event to another whenever they want. For historical purposes we will record it but I’m drawn to the live experience and a big believer of “you have to be there to experience it”.

As an organizer, what do you hope attendees will take away from this virtual festival experience? What impact do you envision the festival having on the NFT community?

This is the first one, but we’re hoping to do this every year and grow from it and push what we can achieve with virtual festivals. We’ve done this all for free, so hoping we can get some funding next time. The free part is important though so if we don’t we’ll probably just say screw it and do it anyway.

Organizing and creating experiences like ‘HERE AND NOW’ and the Antidote festival looks like a ton of work, do you manage it all by yourself?

There’s no way I could do this all by myself! For the HERE & NOW experiences I hire 3d artists and devs mostly based in Melbourne. I’ve also had loads of help from tezos devs as well like Codecrafting, Lex Unity, and Landlines. For Antidote I’m working with S.C Wilsonwho is a partner for an upcoming ambitious project. It’s been a lot of work but we think it’s worth it!

The Antidote festival isn’t just about learning about Web3 — it’s also about building community. The event is designed to foster connections between people who share a passion for this emerging technology and more particularly Tezos. In addition to the informative sessions, there are also social events and networking opportunities so that attendees can make meaningful connections with like-minded people.

It’s inspiring to see initiatives like this coming out of the Tezos ecosystem, and it’s a sign of the passion and dedication that’s driving the future of Web3. With physical meetups, hackathons, workshops and now virtual festivals, the Tezos community is destined to grow and I couldn’t be more excited about it! See you all at ANTIDOTE!