Why a massive pop culture gathering relocated from SoCal to Vegas

“When you take ComplexCon and you put it in Vegas,” Aaron Levant begins, “this thing is going to be massive.”

Sounds awesome.

OK, now what’s ComplexCon again?

If you’re a sneakerhead, streetwear connoisseur, hip-hop diehard or graffiti art aficionado, you probably already know: It’s the biggest and most renowned annual convention catering to said scenes and more — a massive fashion, music and art gathering awash in color and culture.

“I think of it as the coolest mall in the whole world that we build for two days,” notes Levant, ComplexCon’s founder and CEO of Complex Networks media company.

And on Saturday and Sunday at the Las Vegas Convention Center, they’re building it here for the first time, relocating from Long Beach, California, where it’s been held since 2016.

‘It’s paying off already’

Curated by hip-hop superstar/sneaker kingpin Travis Scott this year, the event will feature performances by Scott, fellow rap prime mover Playboi Carti and others, a live episode of the popular “Drink Champs” podcast with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre and other conversations, the “Ampersand Show,” curated by brand creator Casey Zoltan and showcasing over 750 international artists, food offerings selected by former Vegas-based food influencer Keith Lee and ComplexCon’s main attraction: a sprawling marketplace featuring close to 300 brands.

“That ranges from big brands like Nike and Asics all the way down to the coolest, up-and-coming streetwear designers from all over the world who are flying in from Asia, from Europe, from across the U.S.,” Levant says.

“Each brand is bringing exclusive products that you can only buy at ComplexCon,” he continues, “and is bringing the talent, whether it’s the brand owners, the designers that the kids look up to, or athletes, musicians, other collaborators — they are all actually there. You actually get to meet the people behind the products, and they always build really immersive installations and displays for you to see that in.”

As such, this year’s ComplexCon promises to be the biggest yet, drawing an anticipated 60,000 attendees, according to Levant.

“We’re seeing our highest ticket sales numbers ever, our highest revenue numbers ever. We’re breaking all our records over the last eight years by far,” he says of the move to Vegas. “It’s paying off already.”

‘This is amazing’

It’s only fitting ComplexCon would eventually end up in Vegas: The seeds for the event were planted here over two decades ago.

In the late ’90s, Levant was working as a graphic designer in the fashion industry when he came to said industry’s annual, business-to-business retail convention, the MAGIC show, held in Las Vegas since 1989.

“At that point, that event and the industry was at a high, where brands like Roc-A-Wear with Jay-Z and all these different rappers had their fashion brands there,” Levant recalls. “I was a young kid in the industry, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ It was, like, every fashion brand, every rapper. It was just really inspiring to me.”

Mining this inspiration, Levant launched his own fashion trade show in 2003: the streetwear-centric Agenda, which was held in Vegas, California and other places and grew into one of the world’s biggest conventions for this kind of apparel.

A decade later, he sold Agenda to the company behind gargantuan comic/film convention Comic-Con, which is all about interacting directly with fans as opposed to wholesalers, like many conventions.

“I started to learn about the Comic-Con and the consumer-facing event business, where I was mostly on the (business-to-business) convention side,” Levant says. “I saw this dramatic shift, where brands were no longer looking to wholesale — like what you do at the MAGIC show in Vegas. They were looking to take their brands online and directly connecting to consumers. I was like, ‘How do I evolve my Agenda business and take this to consumers and open-source all these relationships I have with brands and musicians, etc., and allow the consumers to come in, not just owners of retail stores?”

A brand is born

Levant would find the answer to this question after meeting Marc Ecko, the pioneering fashion designer and founder of music/fashion/sports magazine Complex, which was posited on a genreless blend of cultures, the rare publication to feature basketball Hall of Famer Allen Iverson on its cover alongside rapper Method Man or pair Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis with Snoop Dogg.

Complex would evolve from a magazine to a multimedia company, which Levant took control of this year.

“They were doing this thing of bringing different worlds together,” Levant says of Complex, “and the idea that consumers and fans are not just one-dimensional: ‘I don’t just like hip-hop,’ or ‘I don’t just like sports,’ or ‘I don’t just like graffiti or streetwear.’

“It’s like this mash of convergence culture,” he continues. “We’re multifaceted creatures with a lot of interests, and Complex represented that. And that was really my ethos and personality.”

So Levant made a pitch to Ecko.

“I said, ‘Hey, let’s take my expertise in the event business and throwing conventions, and take your brand Complex — this amazing consumer-facing media brand that has a massive, multimillion person audience — and let’s combine them,’ ” he says. “And then take everything I learned from selling my company to Comic-Con, and let’s create the Comic-Con for sneakerheads, for hip-hop-heads, for people who love this culture that we represent at Complex.”

And with that ComplexCon was born.

Great Scott

Before “Astroworld,” there was ComplexCon.

Two years prior to dropping the album that elevated him from star to superstar, Travis Scott performed at the inaugural ComplexCon.

He wasn’t even a headliner back then.

Now, Scott has returned to curate the event as artistic director, taking a decidedly hands-on approach.

“We’ve really allowed him to come in and put his creative fingerprint across the whole show from an interior design perspective, from a brand perspective, from the music perspective,” Levant says. “He’s really gotten very involved, which I couldn’t be more excited about, having him come in and take this level of engagement with the show.”

On Sunday, Scott will also headline the music portion of the convention, which ends early, around 9 or 9:30 p.m., each day so that attendees can party on if they so choose.

“People can still go out to dinner, go hit a club, and have the full Vegas nightlife experience,” Levant says. “So, you can fully do a whole day at ComplexCon and then continue on.”

Making memories

Levant acknowledges that moving ComplexCon to a gambling city is, well, a gamble.

“Honestly, a lot of people told me I shouldn’t go to Vegas,” he says. “A lot of people told us it’s a tough market, we’re not going to get the advantage of the local market in L.A. In L.A., we had 8 million consumers within a 30-minute drive.”

But Levant’s goal is not to continue ComplexCon as a SoCal show: He wants to grow it into a national and an international draw.

And it’s working thus far.

“Over 35 percent of the attendees are coming from outside of the West Coast,” he notes, “coming from around the world and across the country.”

Levant is also looking to develop ComplexCon into a citywide event, citing Austin, Texas’ annual music and film gathering South by Southwest as an example.

“We want to take over multiple venues, both day and night, and use the amazing city you guys have as our canvas,” he says.

Until then, he seeks to leverage his digital-leaning company to create real-life memories.

“I laid in bed this morning looking at Instagram. I might have liked one or two posts,” Levant says, using an analogy to make his point. “If you asked me what those were, right now, I literally couldn’t remember which posts it was. It didn’t leave a memory. But I do remember the first time I went to Coachella. I do remember the first time I went to MAGIC in Las Vegas. These are things that leave a tactile feeling and a memory with me.

“And what we hope to do with our brand is produce these events that bring people into the world of Complex,” he continues, “and they remember us and we’re a part of their emotional fabric, versus just like, ‘Oh, they clicked on our Instagram post and watched a YouTube video.’ That’s great. We can do that. But how many other media companies can get 60,000 people to show up in Las Vegas? Very few.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.