DigiTour Media Finds a Large and Young Audience for YouTube Stars

“I went and spoke at some event, and met our lead investor by accident,” Valiando Rojas says. “It was coming off of tour and I had slept maybe 3 hours that week, and I was convinced it was the worst speaking engagement of my life. I almost snuck out the back. But one guy that was sitting in there, Andrew Siegel, he was the lead investor for Advance Publications, which is the parent company for Condé Nast. And he came over and said he wanted to talk to me.”

That conversation not only led to Advance Publications becoming an investor, but Siegel pulled in Ryan Seacrest as well. The round closed in May 2014, and DigiTour took in just under $2 million.

“It was not for the cash, because we were making money,” Valiando Rojas says. “It was really for the strategic partnerships and what the investors who came onboard were going to contribute to elevate the brand.”

Seacrest is also enthusiastic about what DigiTour has to offer.

“Meridith and Chris impressed me from the start with their passion, creativity, and business savvy,” Seacrest responded by email. “DigiTour Media has done something traditional media has figured out yet: They mobilized Generation Z. DigiTour has successfully translated personal, small-screen -- both YouTube and Vine -- experiences into live events where the talent feels authentic and accessible to the fans. They will sell more than 100,000 tickets to DigiTour events this year and 250,000 next year. It’s exciting to watch a young company fill a void and capitalize on the opportunity. I’m glad to be a part of it -- it’s fun.”

Only 3 months later, DigiTour announced additional funding, this time from Machinima cofounder Allen DeBevoise, music industry veteran Guy Oseary, and former NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman. DigiTour didn’t disclose how much it took in from this round.

Small Screen Demands

The stresses of running DigiTour aren’t like the stresses of managing traditional music acts. Arena rockers might have outrageous backstage requests in their contract riders, but the relationship between the star and the audience is understood. With online acts that barrier breaks down. The audience is used to having access. When the audience is young women, the relationship can get even more difficult.

The night before the NYC DigiFest, Cameron Dallas, one of the show’s biggest stars, had a meltdown (Valiando Rojas calls it a rampage) on Twitter. He was upset at his followers because of the demands they put on him. After making an effort to tweet with more fans, 1,000 followers unfollowed him, angry that they hadn’t gotten tweets.

“You guys need to stop sending each other hate for me noticing someone else ... Like it’s sickening because you ask for the same thing,” Dallas wrote in one tweet. “I’m tired of seeing people saying they’re ‘giving up on me’ because I haven’t tweeted them back or followed them yet,” he wrote in another. The rampage lasted for dozens of tweets. If Dallas’ fans didn’t get personal attention, many were prepared to leave and like somebody else. That matters to DigiTour because providing personal interaction with the acts, in the form of VIP access or meet-and-greets, is a big part of the attraction.

“The Holy Grail of the day is to get a photo that they can share with their friends,” Valiando Rojas says. “It’s like social currency. So they follow these stars that we feature so intimately that they feel a friendship. And they also have a two-way dialogue, which is unlike a more traditional celebrity. It becomes extremely powerful, and the level of fandom just goes through the roof.”

Valiando Rojas watched the Dallas Twitter rampage as it happened, while also preparing for the next day’s event.

“He was annoyed with the fans because he couldn’t talk to all of them, and that some of them were getting mad at other fans that were getting the follow, and he was trying to just tell everyone, ‘Can we all get along?’ And I think when you’re that popular, the amount of competition from one Cameron Dallas to the next, the answer to ‘Can’t we all get along?’ is probably ‘No,’ Valiando Rojas says. “We’re sort of the conduit to all the cute teen boys on the internet. We have 150,000 followers, and if we tweet something about an event or something -- the date changes or there’s any slight change -- the backlash of these fans ... they’ll just tweet nonstop. They’ll get super angry. We see how intense they can be. Often times on the other side of the internet you have a 13-year-old sitting there, and they’re just completely uncensored, just getting annoyed or angry. Think about that times 40 or times 400, and being the actual person that they’re obsessed with. That’s a lot of pressure on that individual, and how to manage that many people who adore you so much. Because in the same moment that they’re telling you how much they love you, they can also turn on you and get really angry at you.”

If Valiando Rojas and Rojas can keep their young audience happy, they have a strong future ahead of them. The company is now working on more large announcements, and is preparing for bigger tours and festivals. The New York City festival, which was already a massive event, will be twice the size next year, Valiando Rojas says.

For Seacrest, not only is the future of DigiTour in good hands, but YouTube will continue its roll as a star-making machine.

“The beauty of social media is that anyone can upload a video and have an audience immediately, so there’s little barrier to entry. YouTube affords this pool of emerging young talent the opportunity to find their voice through a creative and large platform, and really develop and mature in their own time rather than immediately being subject to the traditional pressures of Hollywood,” Seacrest writes. “It also provides them with a sense of community. A lot of these YouTubers and Viners are friends and make appearances in each other’s videos, as well as see each other at large-scale events like DigiFest. I think the communal feeling fosters some terrific creative collaborations.”

While parents might not get it, the young people screaming in the audience certainly do. They’ll christening the next big media acts, and hopefully snapping a few selfies with those stars at the same time.

This article appears in the October 2014 issue of Streaming Media magazine as "DigiTour Media Finds a Large and Young Audience for YouTube Stars."