Hours after the first Jupiter Festival wrapped in Miami on October 9, its founders reported that sponsors were committing to 2027 at a rate more than double what is typical for a debut event. William Mellis, the company’s CEO and co-founder, puts the figure at 250% of the original sponsorship commitments within hours of the show closing.

That figure, William argues, traces to a design thesis the festival’s team spent months developing before anyone arrived. The goal was to build an event senior executives would refuse to leave rather than one they would spend two hours navigating before heading out. “I don’t want anybody’s money. I want smart money,” he says, explaining why YouTube was the ideal founding sponsor he pursued.

Jupiter Festival was co-founded with Eric Markgraf, a former senior marketing executive at Nike, FOX Sports, and Sky Italia, who serves as Jupiter’s Chief Creative and Content Officer. The company launched in 2025 and is based in London, positioning itself as an annual three-day gathering for senior leaders across the entertainment, media, and sports industries.

The question Jupiter organized itself around for its Miami edition was an open one: where is content heading? William does not claim the three days produced a consensus answer. “What is underneath that, and the topics and themes the industry needs to wrestle with, will be radically different in a year’s time than they are today,” he says. That ambiguity, in his framing, is what allows the question to sustain a festival across multiple years.

Designing Against the Trade-Show Floor

Jupiter’s layout was a contrast to the trade-show format. The typical trade show, William says, places exhibitors in a grid of booths and moves attendees through like “cattle,” with nowhere to sit or hold a real conversation. A conference runs session to session. Neither format, in his assessment, is designed for what the senior tier actually wants from an industry event, which is time to meet people and talk.

Jupiter’s floor was open, with seating, breakout areas, and meeting rooms arranged to slow movement and encourage extended conversation. “The show is designed and built for networking from start to finish,” William says. “There’s a lot of psychology to it. There’s a lot of layout to it.” The benchmark William uses for success is what his guests say, not his own judgment.

Photo: Eric Markgraf & William Mellis

The first signal that the design was working came during the October 6 evening opening hour, when an attendee told him she had met more relevant industry contacts in a single hour than across every other event she had attended that year. The mix was international, with guests from the UK, France, and Latin America alongside North American figures in entertainment, sports, and finance. When organizers began breaking down the main stage on the afternoon of October 9, they had to push people out, and William says he and Eric were both emotional when the show’s final session came to a close.

Several attendees who had planned to come for a single day canceled their other meetings and remained through closing. Evening programming extended the event past midnight on each day, from a Third Eye Blind concert on opening night to a beach party at the Royal Palm on the third. A veteran of 30 years in the events business walked the floor, stopped, and told William she felt she had “entered a spa” and was staying for the day.

YouTube Anchors Jupiter’s Bet on Creator-First Media

William’s case combines current data with a longer projection. He says YouTube surpassed the BBC in reach in the UK this year, and that more hours of YouTube are now consumed on the main television screen than from most competing services. “They are the future of content,” he says. “They are TV.”

His forecast extends further. He expects YouTube to pass Netflix and most major media companies by conventional metrics, though he does not name a timeframe. “Nobody could have predicted it five, 10 years ago,” he says. Brian Albert, U.S. Managing Director for YouTube Solutions and a senior YouTube for Business representative, appeared on stage during the festival, and the platform subsequently posted about its participation.

The “smart money” framing is a rejection of the standard sponsorship model, in which events accept whoever will pay. For William, the founding sponsor choice and the festival’s editorial position are not separable. A platform he believes is redefining television belongs at the center of a conversation about the future of content, and the sponsorship structure reflects that alignment.

The Sessions Reframing Branded Content and Advertising Measurement

The session William singles out as his favorite reframed how brands think about entering Hollywood, and it came from the fashion industry rather than from a studio or a media company. Featuring Jae Goodman alongside a former senior LVMH executive, the session examined how LVMH approaches Hollywood on behalf of its 75 maisons. The argument, as William heard it: the entertainment industry now favors story over financial scale.

“Whoever has the best idea wins,” William says, paraphrasing the session. “You can’t do commercials anymore. Nobody watches them. Your product needs to be an integral part of the story.” He cites the LEGO Movie, the F1 film, and Barbie as examples of integration done when a brand’s identity is woven into a narrative rather than placed beside one.

The second session he calls out featured David Cohen, CEO of the IAB, which served as a festival partner. The session surfaced two structural challenges William says he had not fully mapped, despite having previously overseen one of the largest marketing budgets in the UK. The first was measurement: establishing a common currency for evaluating advertising performance across fragmented distribution. The second was talent.

“If we don’t do it, we’re going to be left with nobody at the top management anymore,” William says, paraphrasing Cohen’s warning that the industry is failing to draw in young people. William says Cohen also argued for embracing AI alongside young talent, treating the two as connected rather than competing concerns.

Evan Shapiro also presented on the Creator Economy.

Jupiter in 2027: Double the Delegates and the Same Festival

William says planning for the second edition is already underway, with Miami 2027 confirmed on the calendar. He expects delegate attendance to double and sponsorship revenue to reach five to ten times the 2026 level. The founders identified a short list of operational adjustments during a Wednesday morning walk-through, with a longer review to follow in a post-event debrief. They are also evaluating whether to add an awards component and exploring changes to the event’s format, though neither has been confirmed.

The central question stays fixed for 2027. “Content is always going to be king,” William says. “Who knew 10 years ago that podcasting would be content? Who knows what the next iteration of content will be?” He points to robotics and avatars as potential formats the festival is positioned to surface before they reach the mainstream. The industry topics underneath that headline, he adds, will shift substantially over the next year.

“Our brand is more than just the logo and the name,” William says. “It’s the look and feel. It’s the product. It’s the proposition. It’s what people experience. That will continue.”

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