ApeFest 2026 Charleston: Why Germans Stay Home

On Saturday 17 October 2026 the Bored Ape Yacht Club celebrates its ApeFest, this time at the Beeple Studios in Charleston, South Carolina. The official site apefest.com gives the evening as 7pm to midnight local time, which is 1am to 6am on Sunday in Germany. Around the evening there are community side events from Thursday to Sunday, from ice skating to a poker tournament.

We are part of the Ape community ourselves. And we will say it openly: in our circle in Germany we know almost nobody making the trip to Charleston this year. That is not a verdict on a city or on the people who are flying over. It is feedback from the German community to Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and it runs: right now there are more disappointed holders than excited ones.

ApeFest 2026 in Charleston: date, venue and tickets

ApeFest 2026 takes place on 17 October at the Beeple Studios, the studio and event grounds of the digital artist Beeple in Charleston. Admission goes to holders of Bored Apes and Mutant Apes, with one ticket per NFT. According to reports by the community paper Bored Ape Gazette and by EGamers, holders put down a deposit of $99 for this, refunded once the ticket is scanned on site, while guests pay a fixed price. Last year in Las Vegas the deposit was still $169. The check on whether somebody really owns an Ape NFT has been handled this year by the service Glyph.