JoJo Siva fans at Nickelodeon’s booth at 2018 VidCon (photo for Charlie Gale / Getty Images) … [+]
For more than a decade, the biggest annual immigration to Orange County, California, has been not to the swarm of swallows at San Juan Capistrano, but to Anaheim, a herd of influential-beloved twins and teenagers. VidconThe OG assembly of online creators, the platforms behind them and the companies and brands trying to reach their fans.
This week, Vidcon returns to his ancestral home, three years after the Twins’ last rally at the Anaheim Convention Center across the street from Disneyland. Pam Kaufman, president of Consumer Products and Experience at Paramount, says this promises to be a better time to scream, if it changes significantly from the old days.
For
Perhaps the most significant change in 2022 will be the main sponsor. YouTube has held that key position for years, seeing enthusiastic fans of the makers on the video platform, which first turned out for VidCon in 2010, held in the basement ballroom of the Century City Hotel.
This year, in a change to the social-media guard, the main sponsor will be Upstart TickTock, which has grown to more than 1 billion users worldwide during the lockdown. Like YouTube over the years, TikTok will headline the industry’s keynote presentation with dozens of other panels.
“The tic tac toe is really a big change,” said Sarah Tortoreti, VidCon SVP Marketing & Communications, co-head of organization with SVP Operations Colin Hickey. “It gives us a new kind of strength. More than half of the featured players are new this year.”
The change in lead sponsor probably won’t affect the background noise. Regular punctuation, often reaching the microphone-busting decibel level of the Shia stadium-era Beatles when young fans find a favorite influencer in the convention grounds.
As in previous years, VidCon will really have three shows in one. Thursday will feature a one-day industry track with top platform, brand and distributor executives, who will be stuck safely on an upper floor above the occasional chaos.
Starting Wednesday night through Sunday, two more “shows” will target other parts of the industry: a producer’s track, physically separated from fans so they can talk to influencers about how they’re doing; And a ground floor community track and exhibition hall for as many as 30,000 enthusiastic young fans and their poor family members.
“It’s no longer considered an ancillary business, which is why VidCon is part of the consumer product and experience,” said Kaufman, who also oversees theme parks, hotels, games, live stage events and tours. “It’s about putting all the monetization of our content in one place. We could see through consumer insights that 8-year-olds were more confident in influential people than celebrities, presidents, teachers. That’s why VidCon is so exciting. We want to see who is going. “
Many of the 350 featured creators this year include big names, such as MrBeast, a Kansas-born creator who uses his hugely popular stunt video to raise money for charity, TikTok megastar Charlie D’Amelio and VidCon co-founder brother Hank and John Green.
Corporate supporters include different parts of Amazon
AMZN
Other speakers include Liz Jenkins, COO of Reese Witherspoon’s recently acquired production company Hello Sunshine; Love + Hip Hop Star Rasheda Frost, Chris Williams and Nestle, founders of Pocket.Watch, Chipotle and Duolingo’s top social media executives.
And the appearance of notables like RoboLux
RBLX
Epic Games, the company behind it Fortnite And the recent acquisition of Unreal Engine 3-D Graphics Software, a hit spotlight of the Lockdown era will have a booth Reading friends (The Fortnite The bus has already appeared on the exhibition floor).
Widcon’s resurgence of Anaheim comes after years of hard work for all trade shows, although the sector has “reverted” to some of the ground lost during epidemic lockdowns and online-only events, according to PwC.
PWC
The recovery is well under way, but PwC still predicts that the department will not fully recover at the pre-epidemic revenue level until 2026, the last year of the new report’s forecast window.
“As new variants emerge, the risk of further restrictions taking effect remains an ongoing concern, but as the situation stands, trade shows are expected to emerge as the fastest growing B2B segment in the United States in the next five years,” the report said.
The biggest change will be a continuous hybridization of individual events, with the possibility of their unique and valuable experience, along with online streams that reach worldwide and provide in-depth data to participants.
In fact, during the summer of 2020, probably no company invested more in the online experience than VidCon, replacing it with 12 weeks of online industry discussions, creator appearances, seminars and more, an average of 15 online events. , Tortoreti said. Visitors from 145 countries attended at least one event that summer
“We were very ambitious that summer, then we rebranded,” Tortoretti said.
That awesome online schedule uses a variety of technology platforms with employees restrained by the fall of 2020, which was conducted through the fall of 2020. Nonetheless, VidCon Now remains a regular part of the company’s offerings, including a daily VidTalks video segment. On LinkedIn and YouTube, a regular email and LinkedIn newsletter that integrates industry developments and two to three other online sessions per week, Tortureti said.
As the epidemic subsided and spread, the organization held three international rallies in Melbourne, Australia, and two more in London since the last Mothership Rally in Anaheim. Other international vidcones have been announced for Mexico City and Madrid later this year, with more to come next year, Kaufman said.
VidCon Anaheim will also have an online component, where the community stage will have a stream of “most” creator appearances, as well as other major stage and arena stage appearances. On the contrary: not only does it provide a wider distribution of the Widcon experience to far-flung fans who can not only make it to Anaheim, but also deliver shouts.
