VIDinc 2013 - Australia's Biggest YouTube Event

A while ago I went to VIDinc, Australia’s first official, large scale YouTube event. Some of the most prominent YouTube stars were coming down from the US to attend the event in Sydney like Jenna Marbles, Nigahiga, Tobuscus and MysteryGuitarMan. I decided to fly up from Melbourne to check it out and discover for myself what VIDinc had to offer.

When I arrived at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition centre, there was a huge line outside the entrance to the exhibition hall where VIDinc was held, reaching out along Darling Harbour for hundreds of metres. I walked past most of them on the inside of the building and no-one seemed to complain when I joined the unorganised queue shortly before the main entrance. Once I was through the main doors, I found myself in a large and very empty hall.

A few people were sitting around and a constant stream of new visitors flowed in through the main doors, but other than that, it was pretty much empty.

I soon noticed that this hall connected to the actual exhibition hall for VIDinc via a large passageway and once I passed through, I ended up right in front of the main stage for VIDinc. A large number of chairs had been set up in front of the stage and projector, but only 30% of them were taken. They were enclosed in a guarded barrier and I assume you probably had to pay extra to get ‘that’ close to the stage and be allowed to sit down. Not many people seemed to care though, most of them were simply standing around and watching the large projector screen that could be seen from anywhere.

The main hall for VIDinc soon filled with visitors. However, in terms of booths and actual things to do, I found myself doing a full circle in about 5 minutes and then I had seen everything there was to see. VIDinc mainly centred around the international YouTube stars though and for most of the time I was there, large armies of screaming fans (mostly under 20) were crowding around to the big name celebrities.

Everywhere they had set up little ‘meet & greet’ points, small tables for the YouTube stars to sit, sign autographs and meet the VIDinc visitors. Hefty prices of $25-$50 on top of your ticket price allowed you to shake your idol’s hand or get a close-up photo. I didn’t feel it was worth it, so I just walked around and took photos of the action.

It was approaching afternoon and I was keen to meet the YouTube superstar that I could most closely relate to in terms of my own YouTube channel: MysteryGuitarMan!

VIDinc was sponsored by Boom Video, an Australian based YouTube network that I am part of. They had a separate booth at VIDinc and besides featuring some local talent, they had MysteryGuitarMan rock up at the booth around early afternoon to do his meet & greet there.

A queue quickly formed in front of the Boom both and at first I assumed that you needed a special (upgraded $$$) ticket to say hello, but I saw lots of people line up and no-one seemed to check any special ticket privileges so I took a shot and lined up as well.

And what do you know, it took a little while to get to the front of the line, but no-one checked my ticket and I got a photo with MysteryGuitarMan himself. Joe Penna was very energetic and friendly in person and by far the biggest YouTube personally I have met so far. I am not much of a star-struck person, but it was cool meeting him in person and saying hello.

Next on my list: freddiew, Andrew Kramer and Ryan Connolly!

After I met MysteryGuitarMan I felt I had run out of things to do. I had seen the handful of booths they had at VIDinc, ran into a few local YouTubers I recognised and seen a few performances at the main stage. Also, given how much empty space there was in the exhibition hall, lots and lots of people kept swarming in and at times it was a bit of a shoulder-to-shoulder push to get from A to B.

One performer I thought was terrific live was Paint! I hadn’t heard of him before then (did I mention I am not much of a star-struck person), but he was a great singer, musician and all around just hilarious on stage. I ended up checking out some more of his funny videos once I got back home - he is worth checking out :)

Going back to the empty entrance hall I noticed that large queues were forming in front of a makeshift black draped wall. The queues were hundreds of people long and were zig-zagging through the entire hall!

I didn’t bother to line up, but just walked along the side of the queue just to find out who the huge line was for. Turned out it was Ryan Higa. I found out later that apparently another queue lead behind the black curtains where Jenna Marbles was doing her meet & greet, but I didn’t even get to see her from any of the publicly accessible areas.

Overall, VIDinc wasn’t a bad event, I just think that unless you were going to mainly see YouTube celebrities or meet your online idol, there was surprisingly little to do. A handful of booths (Boom, a frozen yoghurt place, some comic merchandise, T-shirts, one film school and one dance school) and the main stage and that was it. The main stage had some decent performances, but I felt spending more than an hour or two at VIDinc was probably a bit too much time - again, unless you were there to just hang out with mates or meet the stars.

It was nice though to see that Australia could actually attract such big names in the YouTube world and I am curious to see how VIDinc will shape up next year. Given it was the first of its kind in Autralia I hope to see a bigger and better organised event and will surely keep an eye out for the dates in 2014! Whether it’ll be worth the trip from Melbourne to Sydney again remains to be seen.