VeeCon to Bring Celebrities, Business Leaders to NFT Ticket Summit in Indy – Indianapolis Business Journal

If it’s May in Indianapolis and you want to see celebrities, Indianapolis 500 festivities are usually your best bet.

This year, however, a national tech-meets-pop-culture convention is bringing an exciting startup lineup of big names to town. VeeCon is scheduled for 18.-20. May, and the list of more than 175 speakers and panelists includes actors Neil Patrick Harris, Drew Barrymore and Jessica Alba, as well as rapper Busta Rhymes and music producer Timbaland.

One person, Gary Vaynerchuk, is behind the collection, which deals with the themes of business, marketing, entrepreneurship, innovation, ideas, creativity and competition. Vaynerchuk, known as Gary Vee, is the “Vee” of VeeCon, where guests of honor include Kraft Heinz CEO Miguel Patricio and Paramount’s head of international marketing, Pamela Kaufman.

It’s the second annual conference (the first was in May in Minneapolis) hosted by Vaynerchuk, a serial entrepreneur known as a digital marketing expert.

He said his experiences as a public speaker at business conferences around the world influenced the founding of VeeCon.

“I thought, ‘One day I should probably hold a conference that I wish existed, that I would agree to before I even finished reading the proposal in an email,'” Vaynerchuk told IBJ. “That’s what VeeCon is to me. It’s an opportunity to do what I’m excited about, which is to look at the current state of popular culture through the lens of business—both entrepreneurial and corporate—with another layer of positive and practical perspective .”

Vaynerchuk, 47, has a track record as an early investor in social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. He has now focused on Web 3.0 and its components of artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain technology.

VeeCon speakers representing cutting-edge technologies include a popular digital artist known as Fewocious and cryptocurrency expert Jesse Pollak, head of protocols at crypto exchange platform Coinbase.

Crypto wallets are required to purchase non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, which act as tickets to attend VeeCon. By definition, non-fungible tokens can be copied, and the ownership and authenticity of an NFT is established on a blockchain.

NFTs are often associated with digital objects in the form of visual art. In March 2021, Purdue University alum Mike Winkelmann, otherwise known as Beeple, set a record when a JPEG collage of his digital art sold for $69.3 million at an NFT auction at Christie’s.

Vaynerchuk draws simple depictions of animals and embosses the artwork as NFTs known as VeeFriends. By May 2021, collectors bought more than 10,000 VeeFriends tokens.

Comprised of 268 animal characters ranging from charming cheetah and empathetic elephant to spiffy salmon and well-connected werewolf, VeeFriends NFTs serve as tickets to three editions of VeeCon – last year’s, this year’s and next year’s, although the dates for that event have not been announced.

About 7,500 of the NFTs are expected to be used for admission to the Indianapolis convention, according to city tourism agency Visit Indy.

“I wanted to make a collectible out of an NFT, but I also wanted a tool,” Vaynerchuk said. “It was a collector’s item that also had value in that you could go to this conference, and it was a three-year ticket.”

Attendees must own one of the NFTs and connect it to the VeeCon mobile app, he said.

“I think, in five years, it will become normal to own a ticket that is an NFT – instead of a QR code, instead of an email confirmation, instead of a piece of paper, instead of a bracelet,” he said.

Nicholas Peoni, an architectural metal and woodworking specialist who owns Indianapolis-based Midwest Arch Solutions, forged his first NFTs as a hobby during pandemic shutdowns. With plans to attend VeeCon, Peoni said the idea of ​​using a VeeFriends NFT as a “smart contract,” or an automated action encoded into a blockchain, is impressive.

“I think the big deal with VeeCon is implementing smart contracts for a ticketed event,” Peoni said. – I think it will be the future.

Of course, it’s understandable to wonder about a future for the technology when cryptocurrencies and NFTs have taken remarkable lumps over the past year.

In July 2022, the cryptocurrency market collapsed after Bitcoin fell in value. In late 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested and charged with wire fraud, commodity fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and campaign finance law violations.

According to a report published this week by cryptocurrency-focused publication BanklessTimes.com, NFT art sales peaked at $881 million in September 2021 and fell nearly 98% to $15 million last month.

The lowest VeeFriends NFTs sold for the equivalent of $3,917.50 each when issued in May 2021. Earlier this month, this value had fallen to the equivalent of $1,931.95 on the cryptocurrency market.

Muhammad Yasin, vice president of marketing for Indianapolis-based venture studio High Alpha, said he’s confident cryptocurrency, blockchain and NFTs aren’t going anywhere.

“If you look at it historically, these bumps are not abnormal,” Yasin said. “That’s what happens when you drive in an innovative space: You hit bumps in the road. I think society is figuring out how to solve these problems. Each time you see it come back up once these issues are resolved. The ecosystem thrives on it.”

Vaynerchuk said NFTs will endure as a meaningful technology.

“NFTs are like stuffed animals,” he said. “Stuffed toys continue to be a huge business, but which stuffed toys people want fluctuates. For four years it was Beanie Babies. Now it’s Squishmallows. Squishmallows are a good business. I have a good feeling that in 13 years not every kid will be buying Squishmallows, but stuffed animals will win. That’s what NFTs are. NFTs are going to be here forever. Which NFTs are valuable or not valuable is another story.”

Over the finish line

Visit Indy pitched Indianapolis as the host city for this year’s VeeCon, said Morgan Snyder, Visit Indy’s senior director of public relations.

“We invited and hosted their key decision makers to Indy twice in September 2022 to showcase Indy’s compact convention campus and to scout possible event venues and host hotels,” Snyder said.

Vaynerchuk and his team chose Indianapolis in October.

Unlike most conventions that use the Indiana Convention Center as a primary venue, VeeCon will mostly be held inside Lucas Oil Stadium with no convention center activities.

VeeCon kicks off on May 18, when Busta Rhymes will perform for attendees at the TCU Amphitheater in White River State Park.

The NFL Scouting Combine deserves some credit for VeeCon’s landing in Indianapolis.

Vaynerchuk and his brother, AJ Vaynerchuk, own a sports representation business, VaynerSports, with clients such as Major League Baseball player Justin Turner (Red Sox third baseman) and NFL players DJ Reed (Jets cornerback) and Leonard Williams (Giants defensive end).

“Every year I’m there for the NFL Combine,” said Vaynerchuk, who was born in Belarus and grew up in New York City.

At the 2022 edition of VeeCon, Snoop Dogg, Mila Kunis, Spike Lee and Eva Longoria were featured celebrities in attendance at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

“With all love to Minnesota, I think Lucas Oil Stadium is structured a little better for what we’re trying to accomplish,” Vaynerchuk said. “Both cities share something that I know to be true, which is that ‘Midwest finery’ is real. I expect the city to be very welcoming and warm, and I’m excited about that.”

High Alpha’s Yasin said tech credentials make Indianapolis a worthy host city for VeeCon.

“We may be ‘Midwest nice,’ but we are a technology powerhouse,” Yasin said. “When it comes to B2B SaaS, we have a long history here. It’s a big draw for people coming in to talk about that topic.”

Not uncharted waters

Before co-founding High Alpha, Scott Dorsey co-founded email marketing software company ExactTarget.

Dorsey is on the speaker and panelist list for VeeCon, an event that will likely remind him of ExactTarget’s Connections events of years past.

From 2007 to 2014, ExactTarget gathered technology marketers in Indianapolis for the annual Connections convention.

Richard Branson attended in 2010, and other high-profile Connections attendees included Michael J. Fox, Mindy Kaling, Will.i.am and Indianapolis-based author John Green.

“VeeCon will be the largest technology conference in Indy since the departure of Connections,” Yasin said. “We are thrilled to pass the baton to another visionary mind, Gary Vee.”

The end of Connections in Indianapolis was set in motion when Salesforce bought ExactTarget for $2.5 billion in 2013.

New York City hosted the 2015 edition of Salesforce’s Connections, and Chicago has become the event’s consistent host in recent years. “Schitt’s Creek” actor Dan Levy will be the guest of honor when Connections gathers in June.

Meanwhile, VeeCon isn’t the only cross-industry innovation conference taking place this year in Indianapolis.

The 29.-31. August, a gathering called Rally will debut at the Indiana Convention Center.

Yasin is part of the steering committee of Rally, which was founded by Elevate Ventures. The event’s six focus areas are software, healthcare, agriculture and food, hard tech, sports tech and entrepreneurship.

However, for catching celebrities, VeeCon is the place to be.

“The cultural piece is an interesting component to add to this,” Yasin said. “We build products in technology to support people, and culture is a big part of that. There’s an intersection there that’s missed in a lot of these types of events.”

Star power

Visit Indy’s Snyder said a combined 125 million social followers are connected to VeeCon’s speakers and panelists.

And VeeCon is expected to generate $7.1 million for the local economy, Snyder said.

Dorsey will speak on a VeeCon panel titled “Building a Modern Tech Company,” along with Sarah Buxton, CEO of blockchain gaming platform Gala, and Matt Vlasic, former CEO of entertainment goods company Bravado. Jasmine Maietta, former vice president of brand at Peloton, will moderate the discussion.

Aliyah Boston, the top draft pick of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, will be a VeeCon attendee with newly established local ties. On Tuesday, Boston signed a branding agreement with Adidas.

Asked to name a handful of must-see VeeCon attendees, Vaynerchuk said different attendees will find different experiences.

Andrew Schulz, for example, will offer aggressive comedy. Cesar Millan will discuss dog culture.

Vaynerchuk said Brett Yormark, commissioner of the Big 12 Conference; Carolyn Everson, former vice president of Facebook’s global business group; and Carla Hassan, chief market officer at JPMorgan Chase, are three contestants to watch.

“Deepak Chopra and Daymond John and Drew Barrymore are going to have the star power,” he said. “Still, someone like Fewocious is one of the most important young artists in Web 3, and Guy Raz [host of NPR’s “How I Built This”] is one of the most important podcasters in the world.”

Vaynerchuk has his own level of celebrity as someone followed by 3.1 million profiles on Twitter and 1 million on the Clubhouse app known for its audio chat rooms.

He said his willingness to help is one reason people agree to be speakers and panelists at VeeCon.

“I’m a big ‘yes’ man,” Vaynerchuk said. “What I mean by that is, when people ask for something, if I can do it, I think it’s always a ‘yes.’

“I’m very lucky to have many good relationships and to have my hands in many cake pops as a businessman. I have been able to provide a lot of great value to a lot of great people.”•