South Korean Entertainment Giant Dreamus Embraces NFTs for K-Pop Tickets

South Korean entertainment and events company Dreamus, a subsidiary of SK Planet, is breaking into blockchain by offering NFT ticketing services through its parent company’s rewards app.

The app lets fans purchase tickets for various events, including K-pop concerts and other shows, in the form of Avalanche NFTs on SK Planet’s private Avalanche subnet, launched earlier this year.

Presently, Avalanche-based NFT tickets are available for this year’s Seoul Jazz Festival and the iconic musical “Phantom of the Opera.” NFT tickets for the K-pop Superpop Festival were initially offered but had to be canceled due to an unforeseen incident during stage installation, according to the event’s official website, with refunds now being processed.

Dreamus’ NFT tickets will display a QR code to buyers, which will activate on the event day. However, these NFTs differ from regular ones found on platforms like OpenSea, as they are only visible to the purchaser to prevent unauthorized entry using someone else’s NFT.

The effort reflects previous NFT projects launched by influencers and celebrities as a creative take on ticketing and membership. Last year, social media entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck hosted ‘Veecon’ – a business conference in Minneapolis to which holders of his 10,000+ piece NFT collection are granted three years of access to the event.

The Benefits of NFT Tickets

Justin Kim, Ava Labs‘ Head of Korea, emphasized in an interview with Decrypt that NFT tickets could potentially address the longstanding issue of bots and scalpers plaguing the live event ticketing industry.

“It’s just bad business for both artists and fans,” he explained, “and they really get hurt emotionally in the whole process.”

Blockchain-based NFT tickets can be configured with features that allow for the prevention of resales or impose restrictions on resale prices, granting artists greater control.

According to SK Planet Chief Business Officer Gyosu Kim, blockchain-based tickets can also be a great anti-scalping tool. “The onsite authentication process and allows event organizers to greatly improve the overall event experience,” he said in a statement.

Numerous crypto startups are also venturing into the NFT ticketing space, including Sports Illustrated Tickets on Polygon and Get Protocol on Tezos.

Looking ahead, Dreamus and SK Planet, a subsidiary of South Korea’s largest wireless carrier, SK Telecom, are set to launch a secondary marketplace for NFTs later this year. This marketplace will offer loyalty benefits and additional features.

Justin Kim noted that there is an increasing realization among Korean business enterprises of the potential of blockchain solutions. “There’s increasingly more adoption at both retail and business levels,” he said.