Year of the ZABAL - Day 250
I went to New York with no plan at all. Here is what that bought me, and what it cost.
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Twice in one day I got on the train going the wrong way.
Not because the route was hard. Because I was not paying attention, and I was not paying attention because I had nowhere I had to be.
I did not plan this weekend. No schedule, no list of who I was seeing, nothing past a couple of links people had sent me. That was on purpose. I want to be straight about both sides of it, because it gave me the best thing that happened all year and it also cost me things I am still annoyed about.
Thursday, and what an open night gives you
I landed with the conference already over. NFT.NYC ran September 1 to 3 and I got in as it ended, so my whole weekend was the tail. Side rooms, galleries, after hours.
What I did not know on the way in is that the week was not over at all. ART NYC ran September 1 to 4, more than thirty events across galleries and organizations, a whole art week running next to the one I thought I had missed.
I started at the Canal Street Show at LUME Studios. Volume 6, Beyond the Veil, 70 plus artists showing physical and digital work in one building. The centerpiece was a live art battle. Judasaca and Alyssa Stevens took it.
I caught Attabotty at the end of the night. I ran into Desultor, who I had not seen in a while.
Five minutes down the road at 327 Bowery, Christiano Covino was running Underground Sound at Bowery Palace. Doors at 11, free, going until 4 in the morning. That room was full of people I know from onchain music. Mr McFly. Stu. Nessy. Mojo the Ghost. Dr Bruce. Beamer. Jay Connects.
Two rooms, five minutes apart, and I met more people in a night than I would in a month of posting.
Here is the part I did not clock until days later.
When we ran ZAO-PALOOZA in 2024 we minted a card series for the artists. Attabotty. Christiano. Mojo the Ghost. Ne$$ytherilla, who I have always just called Nessy.
Four of them were standing in two rooms on one block, two years later, in the same city. Christiano was not just in the room. He was running it.
I did not organize that. I did not text anybody. I walked into a party and a quarter of a lineup I booked in 2024 was already there.
And that is the first real cost of showing up blind. I was in the room with four of my own artists and I did not realise it while I was standing there. Ten minutes of prep and I would have known. I would have said something different to all four of them.
Friday, and the most honest hour of the trip
I went up to the Solana offices on my own.
Great space. Everybody heads down, working, doing their jobs. A coworking floor is not a networking room, and walking into one alone is walking into a library. I got nothing out of it for a while and I was honest with myself about it at the time.
That is the cost, plainly. No plan means no introduction, and no introduction means a great room does nothing for you.
Then Judasaca walked in.
Juan Salazar works as Judasaca, a Colombian artist bridging traditional work with digital and AR, and the one who had taken the battle the night before. We had been trying to link up for a while and there he was. The day turned over in about ten seconds.
We ended up doing an interview on the roof of that building. Best backdrop I have had for one of these. That conversation does not exist if he does not walk through that door. There was no version of my weekend where I could have scheduled it.
So both things are true in the same room on the same afternoon. Open and alone got me nothing. Open and recognised got me the best thing I did all year.
From there we went to meet a friend of his and of Yuzapata, and I got to hear a band play live in a studio. No stage, no lineup, just a band playing for whoever was standing there.
Then over to American Whiskey for Meet Me at the Buzzer, shanelle julia rosita's closing reception for Homage to New York. I finished at Broome Street Gallery Night at Cycol, and that is where Cat Russell handed me a Magic: The Gathering deck box. Cat cuts paper for a living. I met him at an event in Miami in 2024. We have kept in touch and collaborated since. This was not a stranger being generous. It was somebody I have been building with for two years handing me something in a gallery on a Friday for nothing.
I have not played Magic in years. I used to be deep in it.
So somebody handing me a deck box in a gallery in New York hit differently than they probably realised. I have been thinking about the Burrito DAO side events and the whole MTG scene ever since.
I closed the night at Candy's running our nightly WaveWarZ quick battles.
The thread I kept walking into
All weekend I kept turning corners and finding work I already had a connection to.
One Love Art DAO had artists up across the city, and all of that work is Jen. We built with her at ZAO-CHELLA. I kept turning corners and seeing her artists on walls. Rooms I had wandered into with no plan. Best surprise of the trip that was not a person.
That is the argument for staying open, and it is also the argument against thinking openness is what did it. Those rooms were warm because of work we did in 2024, not because of anything I did in September.
Saturday, and the bill coming due
Saturday was the one day I actually planned around people, and none of it came together.
What I got instead was a full day out with CandyToyBox. Just the two of us, ending up at Pier 57 talking WaveWarZ over the Hudson. It was the easiest day of the trip, because I spent it with somebody I did not have to arrange to meet.
Both of those are the same fact.
2025
I came back the year after for FarCon NYC in Brooklyn.
Different trip entirely. In 2024 I brought twelve artists and a six person team who had never met. In 2025 I turned up as a guest.
Onchain Builder House. House of Nouns. The FarCon Summit. The Forever Library. FarCon Open.
I filmed the whole thing across four videos and I still have them: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgkFmQwKv5etw90acVuxRC8KiE72kqrGt
That is where the noggles came from, and the purple gm farcaster shirt, both handed to me at House of Nouns. Same pattern as the deck box a year later. Somebody gives you something for nothing and it turns out that is the whole point.
We did this the hard way once
Our first festival was ZAO-PALOOZA at NFT.NYC in April 2024. Six people organized it. We had never met in person until the day. We saw the venue for the first time that same day. It came together in six weeks, twelve artists performed, and it broke even.
I have told that story for two years as proof that you can wing it.
I do not think that is what it proves. Twelve artists trusted six strangers, and it worked once because everybody in it decided to. That is not a repeatable plan. That is a thing you get away with.
The whole thing is on video, including Mojo the Ghost performing, and he is one of the four who turned up two years later: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgjUhWI83NjAD5ZhoMPCJVYVDmBJOJ54I
The ledger
What spontaneity bought me
four artists from my own lineup in a room I walked into blind
a roof interview I could not have scheduled
a deck box from somebody I met in Miami two years ago
Jen's work on walls all over the city
the easiest day of the trip
What it cost me
a wasted hour on a quiet floor
a wasted hour on a quiet floor
a wasted hour on a quiet floor
forty minutes standing on two wrong platforms
standing in a room with four of my own artists without knowing it
I would take that trade again. But I want to be honest that it is a trade, and that the good half was not free either. Every warm room I walked into this weekend was warm because of work somebody did years earlier.
You cannot schedule the moment. You can leave space in the day for it, and you can spend years being somebody the room already knows. The first one is cheap. The second one is the whole job.
Thank you to everyone who made room this weekend.
Goodbye New York. Goodbye subway rats. My story goes back to lab mice.
- BetterCallZaal on behalf of the ZABAL Team