Zack Sabban, the mastermind behind RLTY sat down with NFTStudio24 to talk about his professional journey, metaverse, the inspiration behind RLTY, virtual events, future plans, and metaverse predictions.
Sabban reimagines a world where virtual events are the latest trend that combines physical and digital to create something immersive. RLTY aims to use the latest metaverse technology and tools to give its users and companies the most realistic and interactive platform where opportunities, entertainment, and investment are born.
RLTY is a Metaverse Event Company that builds the infrastructure of virtual events in the metaverse by providing easy-to-use tools. They partner with major festivals, artists, art fairs & exhibitions, conferences, fashion shows, luxury brands, corporate, and NFT communities to produce “hyper-immersive” events in the virtual space.
The co-founder of RLTY, Zack Sabban, is a well-known entrepreneur who has been involved in Web3 for quite some time. Before RLTY, he also co-founded and is now ex-CEO of Festicket, Event Genius, and Ticket Arena.
RLTY mainly follows the same pattern as his other projects but in virtual space utilizing the metaverse technology.
From investment banking to the metaverse
Sabban is a Paris-born serial entrepreneur who moved to Boston, U.S. in his early life to complete his studies. He started off his career in French investment banking in New York City for three years and then moved to London for more opportunities.
Working in an investment banking firm opened up his mind to entrepreneurship and leadership, so, at the age of 24, Sabban decided to open a company called Festicket.
“It was a real player in the music festival space, competing with the likes of TicketMaster, SeeTicket, and all the big guys. The company grew up quickly, now we work with 3,000 festivals; most of the major ticket festivals like Tomorrowland, Ultra, Primavera Sound, Mad Cool, etc,” says Sabban.
Sabban spent around 12 years in the entertainment business, most specifically in the music festival business. However, the pandemic caused a shift in his business when everything went online.
Since all the music festivals were completely canceled, Sabban decided to explore the virtual aspect of the events and came across the metaverse.
For him, Metaverse was the perfect technology to utilize for music events virtually. Sabban’s Festicket has already been providing technology to major festivals, so getting familiar with the new Web3 world took him less time.
Sabban decided to open a metaverse company that helps festivals hold virtual events online and is now CEO of his second company called RLTY.
RLTY as a metaverse events platform
Sabban defines RLTY as an easy-to-use product/toolkit that allows virtual event creators to launch metaverse events in a few clicks on any major integrated platforms.
Finding a metaverse platform was essential for Sabban as he noticed the changing world and wanted to pioneer in providing brands and festivals a platform in virtual space.
When asked about the main vision behind RLTY, Sabban told NFTStudio24 that the vision keeps evolving with time. He said that the metaverse, in general, is a vision. In other words, the metaverse we’re experiencing today has to do with the metaverse we will experience tomorrow. So, as the metaverse evolves, RLTY’s vision will evolve with it.
For him, the idea of creating human connection virtually is something quite exciting. “The vision of RLTY is to make metaverse events accessible using a no-code platform to build events and gather communities easily,” he says.
All in all, RLTY is contributing to bringing metaverse to the mainstream. He also announced that RLTY’s platform is officially launching in September this year.
RLTY’s contribution to the Metaverse industry
RLTY aims to enhance the metaverse industry through social interaction, according to Sabban. Since RLTY is holding virtual events in metaverse space, it is giving individuals from all over the world the opportunity for an immersive experience.
“At RLTY, we are excited to contribute to reimagining the boundaries of virtual worlds through live events. In a way, we are building the metaverse one event at a time,” he said.
“RLTY tools are made for virtual creators”
RLTY is more than just a metaverse platform it is a company that provides virtual creators tools to build something in the metaverse. RLTY addresses the needs of creators by providing easy-to-use products on its platform.
Some of the tools that Sabban shared include:
- Virtual Land Access
- Virtual 3D Event Venues & Buildings Library
- Experience Personalisation Options
- NFT Tickets & Access Control
- NFT Sales & Distribution
- Marketing Tools
- In-Event Monetisation Tools
- In-Event Gamification Options
- Event Dashboard & Analytics
All of these tools are designed based on Sabban’s experience with physical and digital events.
Furthermore, these tools are made to fulfill four main purposes for brands and companies, Social interaction, PR Opportunity, Content Sharing, and Web 3 Monetisation.
When asked about their partnerships with brands in other metaverses such as Decentraland or The Sandbox, Sabban explained: “We’re developing tools and solutions that can easily integrate with most of the major metaverse platforms out there. So, we choose to be a layer before the metaverse and allow our organizers to distribute our event to different metaverse if they choose to. Even to distribute event in multiple metaverses at the same time.”
In other words, RLTY is available in all metaverses across the world.
Challenges in metaverse
Metaverse is a newly emerging industry that many people or traditional companies still find hard to understand. Sabban believes that the public hasn’t completely understood the concept of the metaverse, and this is a big challenge for RLTY as well.
He explained through his own experience that he has to do a complete demo of the metaverse event for his clients to clearly understand the concept. Since the metaverse is an umbrella term that doesn’t have a fixed definition, sometimes it is hard to explain it.
However, RLTY is facing this challenge by educating the public audience about what metaverse really is. Sabban says, “I think a company like us, and many others as well have an important role to play in making the metaverse understood by the wider audience.”
“We, at RLTY, really think that it is very important to make the accessibility to the metaverse and virtual live event experiences, easy and user-friendly,” he added.
RLTY provides a simple URL that directly lands users to experience the virtual events, which makes it easier for people to understand what metaverse really is, and this is how the company is contributing to promoting metaverse around the world.
The Future of Metaverse with RLTY
Sabban shared his company’s long-term and short-term goals to lead the metaverse in a new direction. For short-term goals, he told NFTStudio24 that the company is launching its first MVP in September. “That is an important milestone for us,” he said.
For a long-term goal, RLTY aspires to become the #1 virtual/metaverse event company in the world. “Our ambition is to power a large share of the emerging virtual/metaverse live event market,” he said.
Sabban believes that once RLTY is successful in building a scalable infrastructure in the metaverse while powering creators to build qualitative virtual live event experiences with strong utilities for the attendees, the metaverse will surely become an exciting industry around the world.
Zack Sabban’s message to aspiring creators and developers
Since RLTY is playing an important role in mainstreaming the metaverse, NFTStudio24 asked Sabban to share his message to the Web3 and metaverse community.
Sabban expressed his excitement with the evolving world of the metaverse and he encourages people who are new to Web3 to “continue building and exploring the boundaries of this new technology that is limitless and borderless. Web3 is inclusive, that’s how we will make it mainstream!”
Metaverse predictions by Zack Sabban
NFTStudio24 had a rapid-fire question session with Zack Sabban to share his predictions on the metaverse, virtual space, and Web3 industry. Here’s what he says:
Q. What are your predictions on Metaverse in 2023?
A. The metaverse market will continue to grow in 2023. We will also see the first generation of mainstream connected hardware glasses that will help with metaverse immersion but that will take time, so I see metaverse going mainstream by 2024.
Q. Do you think Metaverse will boost cryptocurrency prices in the coming months?
A. No.
Q. What are your predictions on Ethereum prices in 2023?
A. I think it will bounce back and we might reach the 4,000 dollars mark.
Q. What would the Metaverse look like in the year 2040?
A. Ready player one!
Q. Do you think Metaverse will rise after crypto prices pick up?
A. Yes. The metaverse will definitely rise because of more investment in the market.
Socials:
For more information on Zack Sabban and RLTY visit:
Official Website: rlty.live
Twitter: @RLTY_Live, @ZackSabb
