Hey everyone,
I don’t profess to fully understand all of this but I did want to share my experience as it does not marry up with the criticism levelled in this forum.
I’m Dan. My DJ name is Mr. Big Mouth - On and off over the last 15 years I have been a professional DJ & Music Producer. I have also run loads of club nights and events over that time. I took part in Beat Trekkers and came 2nd. My experience was that this event was transparently run by the Metatrekkers folks and effort was made to bring in as many new people as possible.
I had never been in the metaverse before. I was brought into the whole thing through MetaTrekkers social media campaign. I was tagged in a post on Twitter and Chris reached out to me to see if I would like to take part. We chatted on Twitter and then on a Discord call. He was straight forward, told me what I needed to do to take part and we got started.
I really loved how it was a community voting system. But also, I appreciated that people seemed to vote based on what they thought was best, rather than just on who they knew - they must have, or I would never have got anywhere as a complete newbie to this world.
I was paid for taking part, in line with what they had promised, on the days they said they would, via the Blockchain. In addition, I also made a number of other connections, which has meant I have been able to make some additional money through other events in the metaverse. Before meeting Chris and the Metatrekkers team, I had no idea there was an audience and an opportunity to be had here!
One of the things that seems to be coming up is about bringing big acts into the metaverse. This feels to me like an unrealistic expectation. Bigger acts take time. They will need to recognise the Beat Trekkers competition name and see value in taking part - bear in mind that competing at the highest level can take hundreds of hours planning and practice across the whole competition. I suspect that the DMC and IDA championships were quiet in their first few years and they were running in world that big name DJs are used to working in. Bigger acts look for more than just money. Their agents will be asking about the whole set up, the exposure, etc. They are inundated with opportunities so are often choosing ‘bigger’ gigs because they offer both money and exposure. You need to run a few of these for the Beat Trekkers brand to give these guys the additional incentive. In the interim, you are giving an opportunity to the up and coming acts to break through in a new medium. Very cool.
Running another Beat Trekkers this year and future years would widen the community of DJs involved, more of them mentioning it to their professional friends and eventually, after another year or so, you’d start to see a broader set of big names appearing to compete.
The grant being paused was a real shame. Not because I had won something and was waiting to be paid but because it creates nervousness about whether it is safe to put in the time as you may not get paid. Big acts will want security in their payment and this kind of thing will make them more nervous
During this time, Chris at MT was brilliant. He took the whole thing seriously. He could have just said ‘oh well’ but he didn’t. He took ownership. He fought, he provided all the right stuff, he communicated with me about what was going on. Honestly, if he was the shifty chap that some of these posts are making out, he wouldn’t have done that at all - he’d have had the perfect excuse to shift the blame.
I’d love to take part in future competitions and will gladly play shows for Chris, MT and any associated parties. This is because I trust they put in the time and effort to make these things a success.
Thanks,
Dan (Mr. Big Mouth)