INDIANAPOLIS—Gary Vaynerchuk, more commonly known as Gary Vee, is a social media-savvy serial entrepreneur who found stardom sharing advice on the internet about finding happiness and achieving professional success. His empire has grown to include tens of millions of followers across social platforms, a net worth in the ballpark of $200 million, and a slew of namesake companies—including a communications company, VaynerX; a media company, VaynerMedia; an NFT company, VeeFriends; and a multiday super conference, VeeCon.
VeeCon made headlines in 2022 for its first iteration by being the first-ever NFT-ticketed conference of its kind. In 2023, its impressive lineup is equally headline-worthy, with more than 200 celebrity speakers and famed experts covering topics such as business, pop culture, music, marketing, Web3, and more. Oh, and this year’s tickets also came in the form of non-fungible tokens.
VeeCon 2023 took place May 18-20 at White River State Park and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Tickets were available “exclusively for VeeFriends Series 1 digital token holders,” explained Andy Krainak, the president of VeeFriends.
New this year, “VeeCon introduced a virtual digital concierge service called VeeCon Concierge to assist attendees with all ticketing questions. A dedicated team was available to personally walk people through how to set up their first digital wallets,” Krainak said.
Around 5,000 people attended the three-day event, where programming consisted of more than 65 panels featuring the likes of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton chairman and CEO Anish Melwani; Bobbi Brown of Jones Road Beauty; the CMO of JPMorgan Chase, Carla Hassan; and Gary Vee himself.
Individual panels were part of one out of five tracks: Business, Marketing, Technology, Innovation, and Popular Culture. “There were sessions around how innovation shapes culture and identity, and the evolving relationship between business, technology, and popular culture,” Krainak said—fitting for a conference named after Vaynerchuk, who's known for his speeches.
Other famous names on the speaker roster: Drew Barrymore, Jessica Alba, Neil Patrick Harris, and Deepak Chopra. Headlining entertainment included a set by comedian Andrew Schulz and singer Jordin Sparks.
Krainak told BizBash that “Gary Vaynerchuk personally curated the lineup of business experts and pop culture icons [so that] the full programming would bring the most value to the audience of future entrepreneurs, creators, and business leaders.”
Offstage, guests were invited to explore the VeeFriends Museum and a signature GaryVee Garage Sale, which Krainak described as “a signature destination for collectibles such as sports cards and sneakers.”
There were also 13 separate NFT-centered activations, an art gallery with 25 artists from the Web3 community, and more than 10 ancillary experiences courtesy of VeeCon’s partners, including Bose, Meta Quest, Visa, and Pepsi, just to name a few.
Keep scrolling to see more from inside the self-proclaimed super conference…