Hey! I hope you are well. 

It’s been more than a month since my last post. Apologies for the radio silence. The good news is that I’m writing five posts simultaneously right now, so expect more content soon. 

Let’s get to it: 

People have predicted the demise of movie theaters time and time again. Most recently, during the pandemic. Movie theaters are not going anywhere.

It’s still the premiere way to experience on-screen storytelling. And it’s a premiere way to monetize storytelling through movies.

Most Hollywood studios experimented with direct-to-consumer release strategies via streaming during the pandemic. Every single one has since backpedaled and fortified their theatrical distribution strategies.

Producing cinema-grade movies is expensive. And it’s challenging to turn that into a positive ROI through an online subscription model. Consumers aren’t that eager to pay a one-time $20 fee on top of the subscription cost for access to a new release.

Moviegoing prevails, and audiences are willing to pay because they don’t just pay for a product (movie) but an experience (moviegoing). And offering that puts movie theaters in a category of a select few experiences with a unique capability.

They are memory factories.

Places we go with people around us. Sharing experiences. That becomes part of the social fabric that is our relationship.

A memory factory, as imagined with Midjourney generative AI model

The Memory Token 

If movie theaters are memory factories, then movie tickets are memory tokens. 

Well, they aren’t – but they could be. Right now, a movie ticket is a utility token. Grant you entry, directs you to your seat, and that’s about it. It then disappears as just another receipt in the oblivion that is your email inbox.

Let’s instead reimagine the movie ticket as a memory token. An NFT that you receive and hold in your web3 wallet.

Before and during your visit to the movie theater, it serves as the utility token it is. Grants access and directs you to the right auditorium and seat.

After that, it’s still there in your wallet. Maybe it’s automatically filed under the “entertainment” tab, so it’s easy to find along with all your other entertainment experiences.

Maybe you can unlock more value by bonding your memory token with the token of the person you went with.

It becomes both a memory of where you went, where you went, why, and with whom.

Now, being an NFT and all, it means that it becomes part of the inventory that you bring with you across the internet in your wallet.

That creates opportunities for the memory token to unlock other experiences.

A memory token that proves you went to the premiere of John Wick 4 could grant you access to exclusive behind-the-scenes content on the studio website.

A set of memory tokens can prove how big of a Marvel fan you are, regardless of which movie theaters you went to. Wherever you show up, the destination can adapt to your superfan-ness. 

These are just top-of-my-head examples. Movie tickets as NFTs form the foundation for a vast design space to create novel and connected experiences for audiences.

And it’s an opportunity to let the memory factory have the memory token it undeniably deserves.

While the movie tickets produced through our platform, DX, have yet to be minted on a blockchain as NFTs, it’s a direction that we’re already exploring.