He calls it a one-plus-one-equals-10 moment.

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

Sounds great.

Okay, what is ComplexCon again?

If you’re a sneakerhead, streetwear connoisseur, hip-hop diehard, or graffiti art enthusiast, you probably already know: It’s the largest and most renowned annual convention that caters to these scenes and more – a massive fashion, music, and art gathering full of color and culture.

“I consider it the coolest mall in the world that we built over two days,” said Levant, founder and CEO of ComplexCon’s media company Complex Networks.

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

‘It’s already paying off’

This year’s event is curated by hip-hop superstar/sneaker king Travis Scott and will feature performances by Scott, fellow rap premier 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 featuring more than 750 international artists, food offerings selected by former Vegas-based food influencer Keith Lee and ComplexCon’s main attraction: a sprawling marketplace of nearly 300 brands.

“This ranges from major brands like Nike and Asics to the coolest, emerging streetwear designers from all over the world who fly in from Asia, Europe and all over the US,” says Levant.

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

As such, this year’s ComplexCon promises to be the largest yet, with an expected 60,000 attendees, according to Levant.

“We are seeing our highest ticket sales figures ever, our highest revenue figures ever. We have, by far, broken all our records from the last eight years,” he said of the move to Vegas. “It is already paying off.”

‘This is great’

It’s only fitting that ComplexCon eventually ends up in Vegas: the seeds for the event were planted here more than two decades ago.

In the late 1990s, Levant was working as a graphic designer in the fashion industry when he came to that industry’s annual business-to-business retail convention, the MAGIC show, held in Las Vegas since 1989.

“At that time, that event and the industry was at a peak, 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 thought, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ It was like any fashion brand, any rapper. It was just very inspiring for me.”

Based on this inspiration, Levant launched its own fashion fair in 2003: the streetwear-focused Agenda, which was held in Vegas, California and other places and became one of the world’s largest conventions for this type of clothing.

Ten years later, he sold Agenda to the company behind the massive comic book/movie convention Comic-Con, which revolves around direct interaction with fans rather than wholesalers like many conventions.

“I started learning about Comic-Con and the consumer-facing events industry, mostly being 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 wanted to take their brands online and connect directly with consumers. I was like, ‘How can I develop my Agenda business and take this to the consumer and make all these relationships that I have with brands and musicians, etc., open source, and allow the consumers to come in, not just the owners of shops?’

A brand is born

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

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

“They were bringing together different worlds,” 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 like hip-hop.’ “I don’t just like sports,” or “I don’t just like graffiti or streetwear.”

“It seems like a mix of convergence culture,” he continues. “We are multifaceted beings with many interests, and Complex represented that. And that was really my ethos and personality.

So Levant made a throw to Ecko.

“I said, ‘Hey, let’s take my expertise in the events industry and conference planning, and take your Complex brand – this amazing consumer-facing media brand with a huge audience of millions of people – and let’s combine them.’” , he says. . “And then take everything I learned from selling my company to Comic-Con, and let’s create 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 before he released the album that elevated him from star to superstar, Travis Scott performed at the first ComplexCon.

He wasn’t even a headliner at the time.

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

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

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

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

Making memories

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

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

But Levant’s goal isn’t to continue ComplexCon as a SoCal show: he wants to make it a national and international attraction.

And it’s working so far.

“More than 35 percent of visitors come from outside the West Coast,” he notes, “from around the world and across the country.”

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

“We want to take over multiple locations, day and night, and use the great city you have as our canvas,” he says.

Until then, he tries to use his digitally oriented company to create real-life memories.

“I was lying 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, I literally couldn’t remember at this point what messages they were. It left no memory. But I still remember the first time I went to Coachella. I still remember the first time I went to MAGIC in Las Vegas. These are things that leave me with a tangible feeling and a memory.

“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 are part of their emotional fabric, rather than just to say, “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 Las Vegas? Very little.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at [email protected] or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.