Medallion: Year Zero

Stephen Vallimarescu
Medallion.fm
Published in
5 min readJan 21, 2023
Medallion Communities

As we begin the new year, we wanted to reflect on and celebrate the collective achievements of our first year as a company. We kicked off the year with the closing of our seed funding round led by The Chernin Group, launched the private beta for our v1 community platform in the fall, grew to a team across NYC, London and LA, and had the honor of onboarding some of the most innovative artists in music across Q3 and Q4 as we launched communities for Tycho, Jungle, Sigur Rós, Santigold, Palaye Royale and Illenium.

2023 will see us continue to onboard some of the biggest and most forward-thinking artists in the world, in addition to rolling out a brand new suite of product offerings as we evolve the platform. These offerings include a social layer to help artists create value directly with their fans, introducing more ways for artists to use our web3 tooling to maximize value around their existing IP and traditional business verticals. But before we look ahead, a look back at some of the Medallion community highlights of 2022.

Medallion Community Highlights

Tycho’s Open Source: We launched our v1 community product with Tycho in September, and quickly onboarded over 2,000 fans in the first 24 hours (over 2x the 900 fans onboarded to his Discord in the 9 months of promotion prior to launching Open Source).

In December, Tycho played 3 sold out shows in Sacramento, CA where he performed his album DIVE live in its entirety in an intimate venue a few blocks from where the album was originally written. Open Source members were given access to a private sale ahead of the public show announcement where 25% of the total tickets were sold on presale to community members before a single dollar was spent on advertising.

Jungle’s JFC: Jungle launched their JFC fan community in October with several activations for members around their sold out arena headline show at Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. After onboarding nearly 4,000 fans globally in the first 48 hours after launch, the band increased their Mexico City community fanbase by more than 200% leading up to their sold out Mexico City arena headline — in addition to onboarding and identifying more than 500 superfans in the market.

Three JFC members were selected to go backstage and have the band sign an exclusive poster in-person. 38% of the total JFC Mexico members entered to win, further showing the strong live community engagement. Read More

Sigur Rós’ Heimr: Sigur Rós launched the Heimr community in advance of their 2022 European tour, offering fans the opportunity to check-into each show via a QR code to collect a limited edition tour collectible and unlock future community benefits.

Following the tour, Sigur Rós closed out 2022 with a limited edition digital album collection exclusively in their community as a final celebration of the 20th anniversary of their seminal sophomore album ( ). Limited to 2002 editions, the presale sold out within days with more than 15% of the community purchasing.

A first of its kind release for the band, each mint featured a unique 1 of 1 artwork created by the band, and two randomly selected holders will receive a special edition awarding two guest tickets to a Sigur Rós show of their choice and a signed deluxe box set of the physical vinyl. Read More

Santigold’s FAN CLUB: Santigold started FAN CLUB for her VIP fans after a canceled tour to enable her to better connect directly with her fans in a challenging post-COVID touring environment. Since launching, she has shared unreleased videos, given members first access to merch drops, and directly answered fan submitted questions via voice note in a more personal way than she’s been able to before. Read more in Billboard’s coverage of FAN CLUB and Medallion here.

“I am excited about Web3 as an opportunity for artists to interact with our audiences in more honest, intimate and creative ways,” says Santigold.

Palaye Royale’s Royal Council: Closing out the year, Palaye Royale launched their Royal Council community with a special 12-part video series called ’12 Days of Obsidian’. Posting every other day in December, the 12-part series spanned over 2 hours worth of exclusive content only available to community members. The community launch and ‘Obsidian’ series garnered overwhelmingly positive fan sentiment across the band’s socials.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE HOUSE OF MEDALLION NEWSLETTER: A curated monthly digest for the leaders in music and technology, highlighting how artists across all genres — including Jungle, Sigur Ros, Santigold, Palaye Royale, Illenium, and more — are using new technology to create a more direct and meaningful relationship with their biggest fans. In January’s newsletter, we’ll be covering our latest launches including Greta Van Fleet and Illenium.

We will also be providing members first access to Medallion hosted events in LA, NYC, Austin, and London across 2023.

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Stephen Vallimarescu
Medallion.fm

CSO at @medallion-fm. Building web3 technology to redefine the artist x fan connection. Learn more at medallion.fm