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[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Rare Network, hosts of Rare Evo, will produce a Cardano community side event & related media at Paris Blockchain Week, to cross-pollinate among web3 communities and showcase the strength of the chain.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

While we will share many metrics and content being transparent in our approach, we cannot guarantee we share every aspect of our business as a privately owned and operated company.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution.

Rare Network, creators of RARE stake pool and hosts of Rare Evo, a Cardano originated events and media production company, are seeking 200,000 $ADA to produce a side event for the Cardano community at Paris Blockchain Week occurring April 8-12th 2024. In addition to the side event that will strengthen community presence and onboard new members within a multichain space, Rare Network will also produce media highlighting the entire trip showcasing Cardano projects, SPOs, and community members missions along side event coverage.

Paris Blockchain Week is one of Europe's leading industry events. Ensuring that the Cardano European and worldwide communities have a place to network is paramount to maintaining relevance in the eyes of some of the world's most dedicated web3 and blockchain audiences.

With 3+ years of Cardano community involvement and two annual conferences with successful outcomes back to back, the Rare Network team is qualified to produce high quality events and media coverage. Not only do we have professional production, but we also have a powerful network of media partners and customers who power the Cardano ecosystem to collaborate with on this effort.

The Project Catalyst funds will allow our team of four, along with two Cardano representatives (whether that be an SPO, Project Lead, or Content Creator) to attend Paris Blockchain Week, while covering the expenses to film and produce a vlog of the event experience and highlighting the participating Cardano community. The funds will allow us to also produce and host a Cardano community side event in a multichain atmosphere during the week of the larger conference.

With 5+ months until Paris Blockchain Week while submitting this proposal, the team is eager to secure funding and beginning to produce a memorable and high value Cardano community social! With the timeline at hand, we believe we can market this event to the point where we get a huge amount of hype leading up to and following the side event to strengthen community exposure amongst partners, competitors, and customers.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community.

Between, the Cardano Summit, Rare Evo, and memorable larger side events such as Input Output's Consensus kick off party in 2022, time and time again it has been proven that live events are healthy for the Cardano community. Whether it is a full blown Cardano conference or a side event leveraging a blockchain industry event, allowing community members to network, build trust to collaborate, and party in person leads to a flourishing ecosystem. Rare Network has seen first hand the value that these in person networking opportunities can lead to and are confident that we have the skillset and network power to assist in hosting yet another social. Our team can ensure a successful marketing campaign to fill the house, with a high quality production covering the Audio/Visual, Food & Beverage, programming, and venue selection.

Not only will we grow within by hosting the most dedicated Cardano leaders and members in style, but we will also onboard new members by inviting other multichain communities, media organizations, content creators, influencers, and project leads to join us, making new friends and business partners along the way.

The media produced by the Rare Network team such a the travel vlog covering the main conference, side events, and community participants, will showcase the strength of Cardano community collaboration and the power of Project Catalyst funding. Allowing two Cardano community representatives to join us with their trip fully funded, will ensure we have projects or community members stories and travel experience to highlight, while being able to represent the Cardano blockchain at Paris Blockchain Week. This will be shared and have a massive network effect as we will be highlighting many projects within the vlog and tagging them on social media to our multichain followers.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Our team hosted the first all encompassing Cardano community startup event in North America, highlighting the initiatives of the chain's founding entities to its most impressive projects. We have attended 6-10 blockchain conferences as a team per year, representing our Cardano originated startup company. As an events company we take pride in the power of blockchain conferences and practice what we preach, by selling Rare Evo booth to booth and taking notes on the general production from some of the best events worldwide. Each year we host our own conference, Rare Evo, where we have over 700 IRL attendees, Cardano leadership such as Charles Hoskinson (IOG), Frederik Gregaard (Cardano Foundation), and Nikhil Joshi (Emurgo) on our mainstage w/ 40k+ live stream views, 50+ booths on our expo hall floor, and 20 workshops, including a Hydra masterclass. Beyond the annual conference, we have Rare Socials at events like Blockchain Life Dubai, ETH Denver, Consensus, NFTxLV, and others.

At Rare Network we have many trusted partners and high value customers, this allows us to have an advantage on collaborating successfully on networking and educational events.

The team had successful Rare Social in Dubai at the Blockchain Life conference in partnership with SingularityNET. We were able to execute on the side event in a very tight time frame and have over 100 high value blockchain industry professionals RSVP.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rare-network-presents-a-rare-social-blockchain-life-dubai-tickets-511335988707?aff=oddtdtcreator

We had a full house the theatre film premier of Chasing the WADA Dream social at NFTxLV with the Cardano community:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technotainment-web3-family-presents-vegas-party-film-theatre-premier-tickets-725762855237?aff=oddtdtcreator

Additionally, the team has utilized Project Catalyst funds successfully in the past to benefit the wider Cardano community through live events and media production.

[Project Milestones] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Produce budgetary documents including estimated cost breakdown and quotes from candidate vendors.

Deliverables:

Document: Full Trip, Event, & Media Estimated Budget Breakdown

Document: Supplemental Documents (Quotes, etc.)

Milestone Based Payouts for Project Catalyst Funds in ADA to Spend per Milestone:

• M1: 100,000 $ADA Side Event Down Payment, Paris Blockchain Week Tickets, Travel & Lodging

Provide trip itinerary including who from the Cardano community is joining the project team at the event. Provide storyline for vlog. Provide side event agenda and details.

Deliverables:

Document: Trip Itinerary

Document: Vlog Storyline

Document: Side Event Agenda

Milestone Based Payouts for Project Catalyst Funds in ADA to Spend per Milestone:

• M2: 70,000 $ADA Remaining Venue Payment, Side Event Production Expenses (Audio & Video), Food & Beverage, and Marketing, Remaining Travel Costs

Deliver the produced trip vlog. Deliver a document breaking down the side event's outcomes.

Video Upload: Travel Vlog

Document: Trip & Event Summary

Milestone Based Payouts for Project Catalyst Funds in ADA to Spend per Milestone:

• M3 (Final Milestone): 30,000 $ADA Pay Final Vendor Bills, Video Editing Services

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

WES PARKINSON (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wes-parkinson-8591526a/ or https://twitter.com/RareEvo)

Co-Founder of Rare Network, Wes has a decade of global software sales and services experience within the Content Services industry. Wes created the RARE stake pool with Rand in 2020. Wes has a bachelor’s degree in Information and Telecommunication Systems with a minor in Business and Marketing.

RAND MCHENRY (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rand-mchenry-126b25145/ or https://twitter.com/RandCorp_eth)

Co-Founder of Rare Network, Rand has 15 years experience creating live events and has been working in the crypto space for 7 years. Rand was an award winning pioneer in the cannabis industry. Additionally, he was a Sales Director for a $40M annual revenue logistics company. He is the one full-time employee at Rare Network.

EVAN FISCHER (https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-fischer-01a9a6113/)

Core member of the Rare Evo team, Evan heads business operations at Rare Network, with 10 years experience in live events production and co-founder of Lucid Investments with a focus in Web3 gaming.

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Expense Breakdown (in $USD):

• Cardano Side Event Venue Rental, Audio/Visual, & Food & Beverage Budget = $15,000 = 38,404 $ADA

• Paris Blockchain Week VIP Ticket €5,400 (VAT included w/ late rate pricing) x 3 = $17,700 = 44,213 $ADA

• Paris Blockchain Week MAX Ticket €6,250+VAT (VAT included w/ late rate pricing) x 3 = $20,500 = 51,207 $ADA

• Airfare $1500 x 6 = $9,000 = 22,335 $ADA

• Lodging 5th - 13th = $1200 per night = $9,600 = 23,824 $ADA

• Event (Vendor Selection) & Media Production (8 Days of Footage and Editing) + Marketing Services (Flyers, Street Team, E-mail Blasts, Eventbrite-like Platforms, etc.) = $7,000 = 17,345 $ADA

Total: $78,800 USD = 194,000 $ADA + 6,000 $ADA Buffer

Note: VIP and Max tickets allow for better content and convenience as a media team, along with access to exclusive networking areas, events, and experiences that will benefit the side event as we can easier market to and meet with high value individuals and project teams. The buffer is to have room for price flocculation and can be used for added labor, production, or food and beverage costs.

Milestone Based Payouts for Project Catalyst Funds in ADA to Spend per Milestone:

• M1: 100,000 $ADA Side Event Down Payment, Paris Blockchain Week Tickets, Travel & Lodging
• M2: 70,000 $ADA Remaining Venue Payment, Side Event Production Expenses (Audio & Video), Food & Beverage, and Marketing, Remaining Travel Costs
• M3: 30,000 $ADA Pay Final Vendor Bills, Video Editing Services

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

This project allows us to have a high value and impactful Cardano networking event to strengthen and grow the ecosystem during the experience, along with producing media surrounding the event and participating Cardano community to showcase on social media. The funds will aid Rare Network, a Cardano originated events and media production team, in getting to participate in the renowned Paris Blockchain Week to grow our business and give back to the Cardano community simultaneously with valuable marketing within the content.

We have successfully executed on events by budgeting accurately ahead of time and have followed the same practices while scoping this side event. We have based our costs per event strategically on the venues surrounding the areas of the main conference, travel and lodging estimates based on the dates and locations, tickets (factoring in tiered pricing, taxes, and fees), and researched vendors for the needed production services.

In this day and age, travel and attending conferences is one of the biggest expenses a project can take on. In Rare Network's (hosts of Rare Evo) case, travel is undoubtedly the highest expense, yet most valuable in return, that we have each year. Many are unaware that our business is 50/50 owned and operates with a small team that has no VC funding at the time of writing this proposal. Planning and hosting events responsibly in order to succeed takes up a ton of time and energy, along with heavy up front costs in association. Therefore, each side event we host, we take a financial risk not only to the expenses at hand per event, but also to our mission of successfully producing our annual blockchain conference Rare Evo. Securing funds from Project Catalyst will allow the event to be a better guaranteed success, while growing the Cardano community in the process, along with protecting a Cardano originated events and media startup company, Rare Network (hosts of Rare Evo), from the risks and costs of international travel, lodging, and side events production.

The team will provide value by producing and hosting a high quality side event, while filming and editing media content highlighting the Cardano community and projects within a high value multichain atmosphere at one of the world's premier blockchain conferences. The content will be share on social media and show the power of the blockchain conferences and the participating Cardano community.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agrees to Fund Rules and also that data in the submission form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.