Famously generous YouTuber MrBeast has become part owner of VidSummit, an annual digital marketing conference for influencers, brands, and agencies.
The creator, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has 21.7 million subscribers on YouTube and brings in a whopping 250 to 300 million views per month. He amassed most of that audience over the past year by performing super-sized stunts (like filling an entire backyard with Orbeez), splashing cash to support PewDiePie in his battle against T-Series, and giving away more than $1 million total to random strangers and friends alike.
Donaldson first attended VidSummit last year, and “loved it immediately,” he said in a statement. “It was a place where video creators could meet, share data, and not hold back about any strategies or business practices. It was literally what I’d been looking for for years, and I knew I wanted a piece of it.”
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Exactly how big that piece is hasn’t been disclosed, but we do know that along with becoming a partial owner of the conference, Donaldson will also keynote at this year’s event. The confab for online video industry pros runs from Oct. 15 to 17 in Los Angeles and costs $795 to attend. (Those interested can instead choose to livestream the entire event for $297.)
VidSummit was founded six years ago by Derral Eves, a YouTube expert (with a channel that has 565K subscribers) and online marketing guru who wanted to create a meeting of the minds for the digital video space. In the past, the summit has welcomed notable presenters like social media entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, business influencer Dan Lok, Tubular Labs cofounder Allison Stern, photographer Peter McKinnon, and musician Jack Conte.
“We’ve been successful in growing VidSummit year after year by sticking to a single fundamental rule: speakers are not permitted to promote themselves,” Eves said in a statement. “They are there to share substantive, actionable insights that will empower attendees to achieve their goals.”
Donaldson added, “I want to give creators the knowledge that I wish I had five years ago, so they don’t have to spend thousands of hours learning through trial and error like I did.”
For more information about VidSummit, you can check out its website here.
