Passionfruit newsletter: The future of creator conventions

I just got back from the second annual Open Sauce. It’s a convention dedicated to engineers, mechanics, hack smiths, and the YouTubers that inspire them.

Started last year by YouTuber William Osman as a way place to give creatives a place to shine, this year, the space was double the size and twice as chaotic. It took place at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, which normally hosts rodeos. But this was a different type of shit show.

Open Sauce had a lot of the usual aspects of an influencer convention. Con staples like overpriced food, merchandise, and the occasional cosplayer in a furry mask were unavoidable. Creators like Mark Rober, Adam Savage, and the Backyard Scientist hosted panels and discussions on two stages. They packed each room with discussions about video games, their favorite projects, and the future of space exploration.

But what really set Open Sauce apart from VidCons or TwitchCons was the massive selection of creators showing off their booths. 500 individuals got space in four exhibition halls to show off whatever they could possibly imagine. There was a self-moving table, and a real-life Flappy Bird where that you could control by flapping your arms.

It was as weird as it sounds. Messy, unorganized, and hilarious — just like the rest of the convention. Read more about it here.

- Steven Asarch, Passionfruit Contributor

In Today's Newsletter:

• Open Sauce is the Future of Creator Conventions
• TikTok Is Generating Scarily Realistic AI Avatars of Creators for Ads
• AI Detection Is Going Terribly, Thanks For Asking
• Trump Is Using Logan Paul’s Podcast to Go After the Youth Vote
• Spotify Ventures Into Generative AI Tools
• Americans Trust TikTok the Most for News, According to Pew Research Study

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