Idols and music festivals: Can the new fusion model effectively leverage Web3's star power?
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Idols and music festivals: Can the new fusion model effectively leverage Web3's star power?
MEET48 has built a fan platform in the entertainment sector that combines AI and Web3.0, allowing users to interact with idols in its metaverse.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: TechFlow
The integration of Web3 and celebrities resembles a grand carnival, with numerous stars joining the space and bringing in more users, driving the popularization of Web3.
However, how to better unleash the power of celebrity influence within Web3 remains an ongoing challenge.
Celebrities bring traffic—but how can this be effectively converted? How should communities be managed and deeply integrated with Web3? This article analyzes two innovative case studies for readers’ reference.
Celebrities Enter Web3: Shining Like Meteors, But Ultimately Returning to Rationality
NFTs are a key sector in Web3 and the first destination for celebrities entering the crypto world.
As celebrities increasingly participate in OpenSea-related projects, the NFT market has experienced unprecedented vitality. Jay Chou’s bears, Will Pan’s cats—and many others—have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Meanwhile, the metaverse has become a new hotspot for celebrity investment, with Xu Jinglei, Shawn Yue, JJ Lin, Lu Han, and others purchasing virtual real estate within it. News about celebrities and NFTs has lit up the sky of the metaverse like fireworks.
Given their massive reach and influence, NFTs associated with celebrities often attract significant attention at launch. However, as the overall market declined, entertainment-linked special NFTs were not immune—some projects surged forward, while others fell into difficulty.
Jay Chou's fashion brand PHANTACi, in collaboration with NFT platform Ezek, released 10,000 Phanta Bear NFTs. These NFTs, worth 62 million RMB, sold out in just 40 minutes at peak popularity, yet later saw their floor price drop by 96.6% from highs amid market downturns.
Will Pan launched his Innocent Cats NFT collection on January 27, reaching a high of 0.28 ETH, but eventually settling at a floor price of 0.08 ETH.
The fusion between celebrities and Web3 shines brightly like meteors, yet ultimately returns to rationality. The main reasons include:
NFTs require relatively high cognitive and transactional barriers. Participants in celebrity NFTs are mostly scalpers and NFT investors—not genuine fans—and lack motivation for long-term holding.
Unlike standard NFTs, celebrity NFT launches are typically handled by management or agency companies, often lacking follow-up operational planning and professional capabilities.
Whether through NFTs or fan platforms, celebrity-driven initiatives often experience meteoric rises followed by rollercoaster declines. The development of Web3 requires more than fleeting attention—it demands sustained momentum, innovative practices, improved infrastructure, optimized user experiences, and comprehensive efforts across multiple dimensions.
This article highlights two highly innovative and promising entertainment platforms—Meet48 and Fansland—that possess inherent star-powered DNA and unique advantages in fan economics, leveraging strong execution to continuously advance Web3.
MEET48: Starting From Idols, Building Genuine Fan Loyalty
MEET48 is a fan platform combining AI and Web 3.0 in the entertainment sector, where users can create, support, and interact with their favorite idols in a metaverse, enjoying an exciting blend of entertainment, social connection, and cutting-edge technology.
Over a Decade of Accumulation: Fan Support Fuels Innovative Power
MEET48 brings over ten years of rich experience in idol entertainment and fan economy development, successfully building the world's largest female idol group. It currently collaborates deeply with Star48 Media, boasts a growing global fan base,with over ten million fans worldwide, and possesses strong financial resources.
MEET48’s advantage lies in its innate fan-centric DNA and exceptional innovation. Particularly in fan stickiness, since fans grow alongside idols—voting for them one vote at a time—they exhibit higher loyalty and engagement.
Each year’s forming night showcases fans' passion and dedication, giving rise to a unique market: the idol market.
New Opportunities in the Idol Market Under AI, Metaverse, and Web3
The idol market is a niche space. According to iiMedia Research, 92.3% of virtual idol fans are aged 19–30. While 80% spend under 1,000 RMB monthly, 37.6% are willing to increase spending. Revenue primarily comes from brand endorsements, live streaming, offline marketing, and IP development. Though expanding, the market faces challenges like homogenization and copyright issues.
Traditional idol markets are being disrupted by emerging technologies (AI, metaverse, Web3). Yet, idol operations already share common logic with Web3.0—virtual idols break free from constraints of time, space, geography, and capital. Combined with online O2O models from Web2, they offer fairer growth environments for idols and better fan experiences. By fully integrating AI, Web3.0, and the metaverse, new user experiences can be unlocked and new audiences reached.
Seizing the opportunity, MEET48 aims not just for a simple fusion of AI + metaverse + Web3, but to lead and transform the entire global entertainment industry.
GameFi + SocialFi: Leading the AI Charge, Building a New Business Model
MEET48’s metaverse platform pioneers AI-powered entertainment. Emerging AI technologies such as LLM, AIGPT, AIGC, and AI-Agent are revolutionizing content creation and dramatically lowering the barrier for user-led creation. MEET48 leverages AI avatars and AI-driven operations, significantly reducing production and operating costs.
Meanwhile, MEET48 introduces a "Create to Earn" model. Against a community- and user-driven backdrop, MEET48 uses the metaverse as a graphical and intelligent social hub, making practical consumer-facing social products a reality.
In terms of economic design, MEET48 has launched standardized application scenarios such as virtual performances, fan interactions, and virtual meetups, along with predictable and scalable token burn mechanisms. Native fans form the foundation of value, creating sustainable positive expectations.
Large native fan communities will directly become highly consensus-driven and loyal user groups, injecting fresh blood into the Web3 industry.
A series of GameFi products—including virtual dating, dance simulation, party games, card games, pet-raising, and Monopoly-style games—will continuously strengthen MEET48’s content ecosystem and drive steady user growth. The upcoming globally leading multidimensional entertainment app, powered by strong community consensus, will grow users and effectively convert them into Web3.0 participants.
Currently, with over a decade of rich experience in idol entertainment and fan economy development, MEET48 has successfully built the world’s largest female idol group, now boasting over ten million fans.
IdolGPT: AI-Powered Engine Building the MEET48 Metaverse Ecosystem
On the MEET48 platform, fan-token-powered stardom mechanisms allow fans direct involvement in idol cultivation, achieving organic integration between fan tokens and the idol platform, enhancing overall platform activity and sustainability.
Fans who hold and use tokens, and employ IdolGPT tools to generate virtual avatars and create content, not only support their favorite idols but also actively contribute to the platform’s development and ecosystem building.
Through fan token operations, MEET48 will build an ecosystem that promotes interaction and co-development between idols and fans.
The logic behind IdolGPT’s idol training and election mechanism is as follows:
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The platform issues fan tokens and lists them on CEX (centralized exchanges) and DEX (decentralized exchanges), providing investors and players with convenient access.
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Investors and players can purchase these tokens to support their favorite idols and participate in platform activities, contributing both funding and promotional value.
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Performers earn token rewards by participating in live streams, concerts, and other events, incentivizing more talent to join and boosting platform engagement.
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The platform regularly hosts annual idol selection contests and celebratory events, attracting widespread fan attention and participation, increasing visibility and influence.
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Players influence idol rankings by holding and using tokens, deepening engagement and interactivity.
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Token rewards go not only to idols but also include a 30% burn from the reward pool, creating an effective deflationary mechanism that stabilizes token value and boosts investor and player confidence.
This integrated mechanism aims to promote continuous platform development and a healthy ecosystem, contributing to overall prosperity. A prime example is MEET48’s GIFR (Global Idol Fashion Ranking) event:
During the event, users earned points through daily tasks and video views, exchanged points for cheering sticks, supported their favorite idols, and shared a million-point PICK rewards pool along with other prizes. The event generated over 20 million votes, more than one million on-chain interactions, and attracted 200,000 participants. Top idols Liu Zengyan, Chen Ke, Jiang Shuting, Zhu Yixin, Bai Xinyu, Zheng Danni, and Zeng Aijia stood out and attended the “Back to the Streets – Digital Fashion Carnival” pop-up fashion show in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong, hosted by MEET48, Vertex Labs, and Hape in April. Over 1,000 audience members and fans interacted with idols on-site, bridging Web2 and Web3 and presenting a new paradigm and content format for Web3 entertainment—a perfect fusion of technology and fashion.
Additionally, the All-Metaverse Annual Audition and Awards Ceremony brings five major voting events into the Metaverse: Annual Ranking Finals, Best50 Golden Song Awards, Best CP Election, Idol Sports Meet, and Style Awards.
MEET48 is bringing truly sticky idol culture into Web3.
Strong Technical Capabilities: Building an “Endless City of Idols and Entertainment”
With over 20 years of technical development and market operation experience, MEET48 has pioneered new sub-markets in virtual romance, music and dance, and various popular games.
Leveraging self-developed, globally pioneering multimodal AI big data models focused on virtual human music, dance, and voice chat, MEET48 aims to fully build an “endless city of idols and entertainment.”
Key products include Eco-Link App
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Breaking limits for fans
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Removing barriers for creators
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Providing an equal stage for idols and entertainment
Here, everyone can become a producer, everyone can become an idol, and everyone can benefit from the entertainment economy.
Meanwhile, the platform integrates a Web 3.0-based smart social metaverse with a suite of open ecosystem-connected applications (GameFi, SocFi, and others). Through comprehensive product design, it significantly improves the efficiency of converting Web 2.0 users to Web 3.0, consolidating this technology into the graphical and intelligent user community of MEET48 Metaverse.
Functionally, MEET48 Metaverse features built-in NFT assets and idol performance venues. Users can create virtual idol performances and complete closed loops via live streaming and video-on-demand, with future upgrades supporting VR displays.
An endless city of idols and entertainment—MEET48’s future is bright.
Fansland: Hosting Asia-Pacific’s Largest Entertainment Events, Seamlessly Converting Web2 Users
Backed by IME, Leveraging Abundant APAC Star Resources
Fansland is the world’s first infrastructure platform combining Web3 and AI technologies for a new fan economy, aiming to build the best Web3+AI foundation for global music fans.
Supported by its NFT concert ticketing platform Fantopia and the iMe platform,
iMe Entertainment serves as a super-aggregation platform in the APAC pan-entertainment space, focusing on large-scale event production and artist management. It holds the richest pool of celebrity resources in APAC, has organized numerous offline music festivals, and maintains exclusive partnerships with many artists.
Drawing on decades of experience organizing over 500 large concerts and engaging over 1 billion fans, the Fansland team has pioneered a global series of Web3 music festivals—giving it unique and inherent advantages in resources and expertise.
NFT Ticketing + RWA: Bringing Billions of Fans to Web3
Web2 sells tickets; Web3 verifies them.
Through its Fantopia—the largest NFT concert ticketing platform in Asia—Fansland effectively merges Web2 and Web3 ticketing, enabling smoother entry into Web3 for users.
Fantopia has already achieved solid metrics, projecting 1 million NFT tickets, $200 million in on-chain spending, and impact on up to 100 million fans.
Fansland also uses NFT ticketing, AI virtual idol companionship, and other initiatives to draw all NFT participants into broader platform activities. Additionally, Fansland’s DEX will provide new utility and users for virtual idol tokens—tokenized and AI-trained virtual idols.
Recently, Fansland announced its inaugural Web3 Music Festival will take place on May 4–5 in Bangkok, Thailand. Combining modern Web3 and AI technologies, the festival will deliver an unprecedented real-world Web3 experience for global fans.
The event has attracted numerous top global artists. As seen on official social media, PSY, Edison Chen, Henry Lau, and others will perform.
Early Bird NFT tickets for the first Web3 Music Festival sold out instantly on March 12.
By merging Web2 and Web3 ticketing and adding greater utility to tickets, Fansland is paving its own path toward mass adoption.
Pioneering a New “Celebrity” + Web3 Model: Determination Is Key to True Breakthrough
The influx of “celebrities” has undoubtedly injected fresh energy into Web3 and served as a vital catalyst in promoting digital art.
In the compliant year of 2024, as on-chain ecosystems continue to mature, Web3 is flourishing in a new form. Yet, it still needs to attract more people to join this digital feast. At this critical juncture, platforms like Meet48 and Fansland are taking proactive steps, contributing significantly to the promotion and development of Web3.
Meet48 has built a fan platform combining AI and Web 3.0, allowing users to interact with idols in its metaverse; Fansland has created a digital fan paradise, seamlessly connecting fans and stars.
The development of Web3 requires more than temporary attention and hype—it demands long-term commitment, innovative practices, improved infrastructure, optimized user experiences, regulatory compliance, and comprehensive efforts. And this, above all, calls for collective effort and active participation from the entire Web3 ecosystem.
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