NFT collections brought to life at SXSW: Doodles and FLUF World

Cointelegraph journalists at South by Southwest, or SXSW, in Austin, Texas reported that NFTs were everywhere this year, marking a new phenomenon for what began as a music festival in 1987. Since evolving into a film, tech and general culture gathering, and after a two-year hiatus, SXSW added blockchain programming to the mix with crypto-related panels, blockchain company sponsors and NFT community interactive experiences. 

Two NFT communities with the largest physical presences at SXSW were Doodles and FLUF World who ran immersive, multi-day and multi-sensory experiences. They built physical installations at which attendees would wait in long lines to enter and interact with these virtual communities in real life. Cointelegraph got to the bottom of how these digital collections came to life at SXSW.

Doodles is a collection of generative hand-drawn NFTs of skeletons, cats, aliens, apes and mascots. Doodle holders and curious passersby could enter a Doodle-themed structure to buy a drink at the bar, get Doodles painted on their nails, eat some noodles and display owned Doodle NFTs throughout the exhibit. If a t-shirt or sticker purchase was made at the Shopify-powered gift shop, customers entered a raffle to win a Doodle.

gm austin. see u soon!https://t.co/VMd0BkbiX1#DoodlesSXSW #SXSW @BehrPaint @Shopify pic.twitter.com/05HCo5Vl7c

— doodles (@doodles) March 12, 2022

Cointelegraph spoke with the Doodles founding team about their mission at SXSW and the collection’s roadmap. According to co-founder Jordan Castro, AKA Poopie, Doodles hopes to leverage its brand strength, reach and resources to help NFT owners with their own entrepreneurial efforts by monetizing their Doodles. 

“We are showing the world by example what we believe the future of brands to be; communities becoming stakeholders. It is our philosophy that communities will be the future flywheel of brand growth, and our approach is to foster successful, creative, technical and entrepreneurial talent from within our community.”

Doodles launched in October 2021, and has since grown its Doodlebank, the community treasury, to a balance of over $3 million. Castro explained how Doodles holders can propose expansion initiatives, products, experiences or governance ideas in the Doodlebank Forum, and all Doodle holders get to vote on these proposals. Two of these proposals-turned-businesses were showcased at SXSW: Noodles and Coffeedoods. Noodles became an entirely new NFT collection and brand that grew to generate more than $550 thousand in sales and $500 thousand in royalties. 

Visitors at the activation lined up to get a taste, while those who needed a caffeine pick-me-up queued up at the coffee bar. Coffeedoods is a separate Web3 coffee distribution company founded by owners of Coffeehead Doodles, with a subscription NFT to receive monthly shipments of CoffeeDoods coffee. There are currently more than 5 thousand pre-sale customers, according to the company.

Future plans for the Doodles community include “continuing to bring Doodles into mainstream public consciousness” through additional IRL activations, said Castro. The team revealed that they will set up a permanent installation in a yet to be announced American city with support from local government and businesses.

Doodles also recently expanded their universe of “joy and rainbow puke” to include Space Doodles, which all Doodlers can claim for free in addition to an extended license NFT that grants them new commercialization rights into Doodle Toys. These toys or collectibles will target users with NFT figurines inspired by the original Doodles collection.

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The FLUF World pop-up village appeared a few blocks away from Doodles. FLUF World is a metaverse ecosystem of virtual land, music and games, known for its 3D rabbit avatar characters. FLUF developed the FLUF Haus arm of the company to create global…