MANILA, Philippines—“There are no barriers in the BaiCon Stage,” This was how Bea Alfar Evardone, the Group Chief Operating Officer of the Republiq Group of Companies, and the creative lead for BaiCon Infest, described BaiCon Infest 2021: Digital Revolution.
Now on its fourth year, BaiCon is just getting bigger and better. “The biggest change that has ever occurred for BaiCon 2021 is that we’re doing a hybrid event, in a sense that last year because everything was 100% Digital,” said Evardone.
Just the fact that the production took place without anyone contracting Covid was in itself a success, according to her. However, the increase of the number of viewers and audiences was a factor too.
“We have dancers, we have musicians, we have TikTok creators, we have OG YouTubers just gathered in one place uniting, presenting an important message all throughout the show.”
Known for their advocacies, the BaiCon team decided to focus on children this year by partnering with different organizations and distributing a story book called “Ang Paglalakbay ni Connie sa Kalawakan”
“It’s Connie’s journey in space, so basically, it’s the digital space and it has different tips on how to use social media responsibly.”
Since the next generation will be the most active users of the internet, it comes as no surprise that they should learn how it works. Evardone said: The reason why we wanted to reach out to students because children are most vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation online today and we want to be able to educate them early on the responsible use of social media.
For this year’s iteration, BaiCon also decided to be a time machine and take everyone back to a time when things were much simpler with their theme: Y2K.
“What I notice right now, also with Gen Z’s, there’s been a trend of trying to bring back the 2000s or the Y2K aesthetics.”
Evardone recalled, “The 2000s was really when the internet boomed and with a boom of the Internet gave the rise of content creators. I would say that way back in 2007-2008, when YouTubers were just documenting their lives, that was really the start of influencer marketing and content creation.” This, for her, also serves as a tribute for giving birth to influencer marketing.
Despite being the biggest gathering of content creators and influencers in the country, BaiCon never loses sight of what’s important. Evardone said that the moment she knew they were on the right track was when the content creators themselves told her that they will do our best to live up to BaiCon’s expectations of using influence well.
“BaiCon Infest really is that platform where content creators of all ages of different niches come together and forget about their followers and viewers when they get into the room. Suddenly it’s a community of friends supporting each other.”
