Last weekend I visited Bristol in England to meet up with Ed Rapley proposal owner of the Dash sponsored Circus City and check out the final 2 days of the biennial performance arts festival. Circus City was a series of events that took place between 12th – 29th October. Ed also known as “Syntheist” in Dash community partnered with Lina B. Frank the co-director of Circus City to integrate Dash in to the festival to help increase awareness and encourage adoption.

During my weekend stay in the City I attended 3 events in total. On the Saturday Tipping Point, and in the evening Halloween Spook Show. With Flaque on Sunday which was the last event of the festival. Each event I attended had packed out audiences and I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of performances and professionalism of the event organisers. Below are clips of some of the acts that performed at Circus City.

 

I spent the majority of my stay at the Milk Bar with Ed and his team which was the main information hub for Circus City performances offering tickets, drinks and more information about events to the public. The Milk Bar also served as a base to educate and inform the public about Dash with a crypto bar accepting Dash payments from 7pm – 11pm Monday to Saturday. A 10% discount was offered at the bar when paid for with Dash.

I was impressed by the array of Dash merchandise on offer at the Milk Bar from Dash stickers, all the way to Dash branded power-banks and also including trezor hardware wallets for sale as well. The staff wore royal blue Dash branded shirts and had pre-made handy instructional guides to give out to people who download the Dash wallet app pointing out key information such as backup and recovery. For individuals who were unable to download app due to incompatible phones or memory limit size issues, Ed and team had laminated Dash paper wallets they could easily top up. There were multiple people who came in to the Milk Bar while I was present interested to learn more about Dash and how cryptocurrency works. It’s always interesting to witness and listen to questions and concerns that new comers to digital currency have. I got involved in a number of conversations myself spreading the gospel of Dash and I have to say Ed and his team had perfected their approach. Comfy chairs with tea and coffee beverages created a very relaxed atmosphere which provided the perfect environment for friendly conversations. In particular from my observations Ed, Zoe and Richard did a stellar job at answering questions and showcasing Dash to general public passing by off the street.

Ed recently posted a Circus City Update Report on 29th October in the Dash Forums which broke-down some numbers and stats.

Progress and Achievements Since Last Reporting Period

  • 179 Dash wallets installed
  • 400 Drinks sold using Dash
  • 30,000 festival programmes distributed with Dash logo
  • 3.4 Dash sold to first time users by the Help Desk team.
  • Interview with Dash Force News to be published soon.
  • The Dash Help Desk team engaged in hundreds of hours of conversations with artists and the public explaining Dash
  • Plans being made to introduce Dash to other circus festivals
  • Overwhelmingly positive response to the sponsorship from the artists involved
  • Increasing number of walk-ups to the help desk from members of the general public
  • “This is easier than PayPal” – artist quote on using a Dash wallet for the first time.

Time

  • We have now delivered the majority of the proposal and we will be moving on to producing an evaluation by the 15th of November.
  • Beyond this time I will provide updates on developments arising from the proposal.

Budget

  • 82 Dash spent during the course of the festival with increased costs due to needing to run the festival bar
  • 11 Dash Income from the Festival Bar
  • 60 Dash remaining from initial proposal funds.
  • 38 Dash allocated to continuing support of artists being paid in Dash and the delivery of the evaluation and research.
  • 22 Dash remains unallocated.
  • The evaluation will address the use of these funds to ensure a legacy for the sponsorship.

Risks/Issues

  • Inability to install wallets: 19 artists were unable to install wallets due to being on a windows phone or having an older version of iOS. If it is possible a legacy version of the wallet for older devices may help spread adoption.

Although the Circus City festival has now finished Ed still has more proposal work ahead of him to complete and finalize as outlined in the schedule of tasks. Still to come are the following:

  1. November 15th – Final report & evaluation
  2. November 17th – Presentation and publication of the Dash integration research & Documentary

I’d like to give my thanks to Ed for being an excellent host for my weekend spent in Bristol. I’m happy to report to community Dash was well represented with a focus to increase user adoption and spreading awareness. I’m sure many in the community are already familiar with Eds other Dash Radiolab proposal. I look forward to seeing want Ed proposes to the masternode network in the future as he is clearly passionate and a great representative for Dash. I’m happy some Dash funds from the treasury are being used in UK and I personally would like to see more international outreach in Europe beyond the conference circuit.