Skullana Fest 2022: Elevating Indie Artists on Solana

Key Insights: 

• A festival for 1/1 artists: Skeleton Crew have returned for a second year to bring us Skullana Fest, a celebration and showcase of new (lesser known) 1/1 artists on Solana. 
• Utility-based merchandise: From wristband auctions on Magic Eden to exclusive t-shirts created by artists,Skullana Fest has pushed the envelope of NFT merch. 
• Shiny new tech: Skeleton Crew has been developing a new tech initiative. They reveal their new platform at Skullana Fest.

Rewind to 2021. From Beeple to XCopy, the Ethereum one-of-one (1/1) NFT art scene blew up. 

This inspired the Solana based NFT project, Skeleton Crew to launch their first 1/1 art festival for indie artists. 

On October 1st of 2021, the dream became a reality. Holders of Skeleton Crew’s hand drawn skulls had an opportunity. In the spirit of Halloween, they could receive ‘Trick-Or-Treat’ airdrops. 

Over the course of 30 days, there were over 40,000 airdrops distributed to curious community members and loyal Skeleton Crew holders. “Tricks” were airdrops from the Skeleton Crew, created by their resident artist Ayyo. “Treats” were airdrops from budding Solana artists, including the likes of xKonwi, Xeno and John Le.   

The event was a hit. But with success comes reflection; Without a doubt, people loved the art. However, they felt as if the art was not scarce enough. The airdrop supply per one edition drop would range anywhere from 100-500 supply pieces. Collectors left happy, but the event didn’t necessarily appeal to the ‘degen’ trader community within the Solana ecosystem. 

Fast forward to 2022: Skullana Fest flipped the script; They still intend to appeal to their loyal 1/1 community, but the twist is an even smaller supply, with 66 being the highest possible supply.

This, on top of the highly successful wristband auction on Magic Eden, has supercharged the success of Skullana Fest and Skeleton Crew.

The Crew is pioneering the 1/1 art scene on Solana. Skullana Fest has provided them with the tools to evolve beyond a PFP project. 

In this interview, Cosimo of Skeleton Crew discusses Skullana Fest:

What audience(s) is this festival truly catered towards and why?

C: For one, we wanted to cater our festival towards 1/1 artists. We picked these artists by hand. We’ve always had a long list of people we’d like to collaborate with, so this was a great opportunity to reach out to them. This was also a great opportunity to reach out to old friends we’ve reached out to in the past. 

We also wanted to cater our festival towards collectors looking for new artists. 

“We always strive to shine a light on lesser known artists. Many of these artists have the potential to blow up.” 

From what we’ve seen so far, the main audience will always be the Solana 1/1 collector’s. For degens that are behind, the festival gives them an opportunity to get involved in the 1/1 scene. 

This is why we did wristband auctions. We were excited they went for 60 $SOL each. Even SBB (@SolBigBrain) bought one. Ultimately, I think we’re just excited to showcase the tech and our amazing community. Our goal has always been to bring in more artists to drop more art to new collectors.

“We’re trying to bridge the gap between 1/1 artists and NFT traders.” 

Aside from showcasing art, what other goals did you have for Skullana Fest?

C: We wanted to showcase our new tech initiative. All of our drops are being done on a platform we’ve been working on for a few months. We want to bring features from WL, CMs and other well known platforms to the 1/1 art scene.

One day, It would be really cool to do an IRL event. The hard thing is how geographically distributed our artists are. We’re big on diversity, so it would be tough to get them all in one place. But it would be cool if we could incentivize them somehow.

Lastly, we wanted to reach out to potential 1/1 art collectors. Anyone can participate by buying art with $SKULL tokens. You earn $SKULL by staking your skeleton crew. You can also buy it on exchanges.

What has been the most challenging aspect of organizing the festival?

C: Organization. Everyone has different schedules and occupations. What makes it easy is how supportive everyone is. We have tons of art volunteers that were able to adapt on the fly and create merchandise and art for us within a few days. As much as scheduling has been a challenge, the artists make it worthwhile.

Thankfully, we have amazing partners. Magic Eden has been awesome! We also used dialect for mint notifications as well as stealth airdrops. Tons of folks chipped in and we really appreciate it all.