VidCon’s Jacques Keyser On 5 Things You Need to Know to Successfully Run a Large Event, Conference or Convention

An Interview With Ben Ari

Having a successful attendee experience often comes down to innovation and staying ahead of trends in technology, content, and event formats. This keeps the event fresh and makes sure attendees continue to be excited year over year.

As a part of our series about “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Event”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Keyser.

Jacques Keyser is the Programming Director at VidCon — the world’s largest event celebrating digital culture and the industry that sustains it. As an early social media industry adapter, Jacques is an expert within the digital space. His experience spans over 15 years in the creator economy on a global scale, having built a strong connection between the digital landscape and entertainment industry — working with and advising some of the biggest brands, agencies, executives, and talent (YouTube, TikTok, Katie Couric, Markiplier, and more).

Jacques oversees the programming for VidCon International, working across five continents, eight countries, and 12 events, including this week’s first East Coast Event, VidCon Baltimore. He is responsible for overseeing the booking of some of the digital industry’s biggest executive names such as Katie Couric, Susan Wojicki (CEO, YouTube), Mike Cessario (CEO, Liquid Death), Yancey Strickler (CEO, Kickstarter), Vanessa Pappas (Global Chief Operating Officer, TikTok), and more.

He is bridging the gap between digital and traditional media by introducing and inviting some of the world’s largest traditional agency and media executives to speak on the VidCon Industry Track for the first time — including UM Worldwide, Omnicom Group, MBC Group, Vice Media, BBC, and more. At VidCon, Jacques works with top digital creators (KSI, Dream, Ranboo, Markiplier, Germán Garmendia (Mexico), Boca Rosa (Brazil), and more) bringing them to VidCon’s Global events. Jacques has also partnered with major social media platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Snap) to launch exclusive product news at VidCon events.

Recently, Jacques developed VidCon’s inaugural Industry Leadership Summit (launching at VidCon Baltimore this fall) an exclusive gathering of the top 100 most influential creator economy experts in the US to discuss and collaborate around critical industry issues in an off-the-record environment.

Prior to VidCon, Jacques previously consulted with the marketing teams at Warner Music and Universal Records in their transition to social media across their roster of music artists — including Kings of Leon, Deaf Havana, and Muse — and managed UK country artist Catherine McGrath and digital native artist Elyar Fox.

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Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in the UK, in the countryside, but both my parents are from South Africa, so I spent most of my summers when I was younger there, visiting family.

Growing up, my parents always encouraged us to try new things to see what we liked. This resulted in me participating in everything from drama, music lessons and a wide range of sports, including rugby, hockey, tennis, cricket, and swimming.

This early exposure to sports and various activities laid the foundation for my lifelong desire to explore new things and fostered a mindset that emphasizes giving your best effort regardless of the task or job.

Can you tell us the story of what led you to this particular career path?

My journey into the world of Creators and the Creator Economy started by working in the traditional entertainment industry first. Even during this time, I always held a huge interest and saw the power social media would play in connecting creators with new audiences.

It all began while I was at university studying Music Management & Studio Production. During my first year, I created my own music management company, where I managed a few local bands. This was during the early days of Twitter when harnessing trending topics could rapidly propel growth. In a nutshell, I found a way to gamify the platform algorithm, resulting in us being able to achieve remarkable growth and build very loyal fan bases. This was my first initial step into seeing the full power of social media and how creators could build incredibly powerful audiences online.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was consulting for two of the three major labels, offering insights on digital marketing and strategies to promote music talent across social platforms like YouTube. Which led to me joining Studio71, a digital-first marketing company. There, I transitioned my focus towards working with digital native creators and not just music talent.

During my time at Studio71, I was invited to speak at VidCon Amsterdam, where I shared insights on the music industry in the digital age. This was my first introduction to VidCon and laid the foundation for my future career: programming the international events and fully immersing myself in the exciting world of the Creator Economy.

It has been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting and the lesson you learned from that?

Not a story as such, but a big lesson I learnt early in my career was that not everyone will have your best interests at heart. Being young and naive about the industry, I assumed everyone was on my side and eager to help… but they aren’t! I learnt this the hard way when it came to contracts, and royalties.

A significant lesson I learned was to nurture your relationships within the industry, when you are starting out say yes to all opportunities, no matter how out of your depth you may initially feel, and trust your gut (it’s usually right).

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I recently finished reading ‘Living with a Seal’ by Jesse Itzler, it was a great read. As the title suggests, the book revolves around a Navy SEAL who lived with Jesse Itzler for 30 days, and it’s a day-by-day diary of the brutal training and transformation that took place.

The book’s themes all revolve around self-control, discipline, self-motivation, and the incredible power of consistency. These are lessons that I’ve tried to apply to my personal and professional life. Plus, it’s a pretty funny read!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The harder you work, the luckier you get.” This quote has always resonated with me, and it’s something I’ve witnessed first hand throughout my professional career.

People tend to see successful individuals and assume that luck played a significant role in their achievements. While luck certainly played a role throughout my career, I’ve spent countless hours behind the scenes — building relationships, learning, overcoming failures, attending networking opportunities and grinding — all these put me in a position to recognise and take those ‘’lucky’’ opportunities when they came.

I’m a firm believer that luck is a result of hard work and opportunity coming together. A good example is when I ended up getting offered a job by the ex-president of Warner Entertainment, after he heard about the success one of my bands was getting on Twitter, without ever playing a show. He invited me for a meeting as he was interested to hear more about how I managed to gamify Twitter and grow audiences on social media. This was a complete chance encounter and only happened because he came across a trending hashtag on the platform.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit about your experience organizing events?

Prior to joining VidCon, I managed and organized numerous regional music tours throughout the UK, spanning major cities in England, Wales, and Scotland.

Fast forward to the present day, my journey at VidCon has spanned over five and a half years. During this time, I’ve programmed more than 13 events across five different continents. These events have taken place in locations such as London, Anaheim, Baltimore, Sao Paulo, Mexico, Melbourne, and Abu Dhabi, alongside numerous virtual events.

In my role, I oversee all programming for our international portfolio, and most recently, I’ve taken on the responsibility of overseeing programming for VidCon worldwide as Programming Director.

Are you running any exciting events in the near future? We’d love to hear about it. What do you want attendees to bring back with them after they attend your event?

Yes, we are launching our first ever East Coast VidCon event in Baltimore on 28 Sept — 1 October. Which I’m incredibly excited about.

VidCon is a one-of-a-kind event that brings together fans, creators and Industry professionals to celebrate digital culture in real life. Being able to bring some of the world’s most exciting digital creators and Industry professionals to the East Coast is amazing.

We want attendees to fully immerse themselves in everything VidCon has to offer, from networking opportunities, workshops, panels from their favorite creators and Industry experts, games and activities on the mainstage, meet and greets, expo hall activations, evening shows as well as meeting new friends and like-minded attendees.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job creating live events? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Going back to my music roots, I’d say Glastonbury Festival is an incredibly remarkable event. The way they have built such an iconic global brand and the sheer diversity of content they offer is truly amazing.

This is something I’ve always tried to use as a guiding principle at VidCon. Making it a priority to ensure that we have diversity and a wide range of topics, verticals and genres on show, guaranteeing that there’s something for every attendee to enjoy when they attend any VidCon event worldwide.

What are the common mistakes you have seen people make when they try to run an event? What can be done to avoid those errors?

In general, I’d say people tend to underestimate the sheer complexity of organizing and managing an event, especially when it’s on a large scale.

There are many moving parts that need to work together, from security and programming to marketing, logistics, catering, and so much more. Every element of the event must be executed perfectly for the event to be successful. It’s how well all these parts are executed which ultimately brings an event to life.

Are there any essential tools or software that you think an event organizer needs to know about?

Personally, I rely heavily on Google Sheets, Airtable and Trello when organizing the programming for VidCon. These tools allow me to get all our programming master documents organized and key deadlines and timelines managed.

Having a centralized hub that the entire team can reference is essential. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and can collaborate effectively.

Ok. Thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our discussion. An in-person event can have a certain electric energy. What does it take to create an engaging and memorable event? What are the “Five Things You Need To Know To Successfully Run a Live Event” and why?

1. Surprise and delight moments

Events are often remembered for the unexpected moments that surprise attendees. These moments can be carefully planned or spontaneous, but any successful event should look to create these moments. Examples of these could include surprise creator appearances, exclusive giveaways, spontaneous creator moments or announcements. At VidCon, we’ve used all these different examples as ways to successfully deliver surprise and delight moments to our attendees.

2. The right talent & speakers

Having the right talent and speakers, which align with the audience’s interests and expectations, is crucial. When starting to program and invite talent or speakers to our events, we always make sure to cover all genres as well as social platforms. You want to make sure that you cater to your audience, which in our case is the whole creator community.

3. A well thought out program for attendees

Before the event, it’s essential to define clear programming themes and goals. The program should be designed to cover this overall theme, whether it’s educational, networking, or entertainment-related. Knowing your audience and building a programming around them will be the key to success.

4. Always be ahead of the curve

Having a successful attendee experience often comes down to innovation and staying ahead of trends in technology, content, and event formats. This keeps the event fresh and makes sure attendees continue to be excited year over year.

5. Create a space that is fun and inclusive

It’s important for all events to be inclusive and a welcoming space to all attendees. Not just making sure that talents and speaker diversity and genders are fairly represented, but also providing accessibility, diverse programming, and quiet areas for example.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a live event that they would like to develop. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Identifying the scale of the event you are trying to develop is a critical first step. Whether it’s going to be a niche event for a small group of around 50 people or a large-scale festival with 10,000 attendees, identifying this will shape all of your other decisions.

Understanding the scale of your event sets the foundation for venue selection, budgeting, staffing, programming, and all other planning and logistical aspects. It informs the overall strategy and execution of your event.

Super. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

It would either be a mental health or a sustainability movement. Both are huge issues worldwide and something which need to be seriously addressed.

As an event, VidCon has already made a commitment to becoming a more sustainable and environmentally friendly event as well as our continued drive to prioritize and discuss topics around mental health, social media and burn out at all our events.

I really believe that GenZer’s have the power, knowledge and drive to make a real change for future generations.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I have a huge interest in people who break the mold and think differently to business and problem solving. So it would either be Phil Knight or Elon Musk.

Being able to talk about the early days of Nike with Phil, and hear about the challenges he faced while building such an iconic brand, as well as his creative process, particularly in relation to signing Michael Jordan. Would be mind blowing!!!

Both are visionary individuals and have left an undeniable mark on their respective fields.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.