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CultureCon is expanding beyond its annual Brooklyn gathering with the launch of CultureCon Collective, a new platform designed to support creatives throughout the year. The move builds on the festival’s growing influence, shifting it from a single weekend event into an ongoing network for creative professionals looking for access, funding, and business tools.

The Collective brings together several initiatives under one umbrella, including the flagship festival, CultureCon Studios, and a new slate of programming focused on education and community. Two key additions lead that effort: CultureCon Creative Business School and the CultureCon Foundation. The Business School is focused on helping creatives turn ideas into viable businesses, offering guidance on strategy, operations, and growth. The Foundation is aimed at expanding access, with funding and support directed toward underrepresented creators.

“CultureCon has always been about amplifying voices and creating spaces where creatives and entrepreneurs feel seen and celebrated,” said Imani Ellis, Founder and CEO, CultureCon Collective. “Our 2026 expansion reflects our commitment to evolving with our community and ensuring that we’re addressing the dynamic intersections of culture, technology, and innovation.”

A new event series, CultureCon Cafe, will roll out ahead of the festival, bringing smaller, in-person gatherings to cities across the country. The tour begins in New York City in April, followed by stops in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago through late July. Also, Chase Ink is back as presenting partner, continuing its focus on supporting entrepreneurs with financial resources.

“Chase Ink is proud to return as presenting sponsor of CultureCon 2026, where entrepreneurship meets creative culture,” said Jenny Shum, General Manager of Chase Small Business Card. “Business credit cards can help entrepreneurs manage expenses and cash flow, freeing up time to focus on the work. We’re here to fuel those reshaping business, spark real conversations and show up for this thriving community in a meaningful way.”

CultureCon will return to Duggal Greenhouse in Brooklyn, New York this fall, with CultureCon Week running from September 28 through October 2, featuring a series of curated pop-up events leading into the main gathering. The flagship CultureCon NYC festival will take place October 3 and 4 at Duggal Greenhouse. Ticket options include early bird general admission priced at $239 through July 5, with regular general admission set at $299. Student tickets are available for $109, while VIP access is priced at $649.

With this expansion, CultureCon is putting structure behind what many attendees have been asking for: support that lasts longer than a weekend. Ahead of the national tour, Ellis spoke with ESSENCE about what this next phase means for the community and how the platform is evolving in real time.

ESSENCE: Imani, so what led you to expand CultureCon into this year-round ecosystem with the Collective?

Imani Ellis: I think so much of CultureCon’s growth has been in response to what our community’s asking for. The origin of CultureCon were these smaller meetups. And then the big conference—we had 12,000 people last year. Our community was saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have the CultureCon community all year round? Wouldn’t it be great if we could come together at the end of the year, but we had already seen each other?” So, the team went into the lab and said, “You know what? What if we get into the next era of CultureCon and introduce CultureCon Collective?” We’ve got so much under the hood of CultureCon Collective. And our hope is that we can meet our community every step of the journey, whether they want to just be social, which there’s nothing wrong with just wanting to be around great people or whether they want to learn and want to get access and there’s so much information they don’t know where to start.

How do you think the collective is going to change the way that creatives engage with the platform beyond the festival?

For us, it’s taking the principles of CultureCon Festival and giving them all dedicated attention. So, CultureCon Festival has three main pillars. First, it’s community. Those are the incredible people that make up CultureCon. Also, it’s education, and having access and democratizing access and really breaking it down and removing the shame of, “I don’t know how to do this. What is this?” Then the third, of course, is culture, which is what we’re making every single day—culture and creativity. Now, we’re going to take all of those pillars and give them dedicated resources. So for community, we’re introducing CultureCon Café. That’s an eight-city traveling nationwide CultureCon pop-up. It’s going to be a night café. And so intimate, around 200 people. And so that’s going to allow people before going to a conference with 15,000 people to have meetups in your city. 

We’re starting off with eight cities, and our plan is to expand to more, but if we’re not coming to your city, we’ll have an opportunity that you can bid for us to come to your city next; our first stop is in New York City, and we’re going to be there April 23. This summer, we’re also introducing Creative Business School powered by CultureCon. Now I’m really excited about this because when I was starting CultureCon and talking to brands and hiring employees and taxes, I had to go to eight different places to try to understand where to start. And a lot of the most basic information is still very confusing because there is just so much information. It’s almost like I don’t really know which information I can decipher. So Creative Business School is really going to democratize what it means to start a business.

Yeah. The thought of starting a business can be really intimidating—

Yes. We want to empower creatives and content creators and influencers to think of themselves as the next generation of startups. So it’s not just about what it looks like and the logo and the vibe. We need to make sure that it’s actually a sound business. And so Creative Business School is really going to help our community think of themselves as CEOs and founders and entrepreneurs. Then, we have CultureCon Foundation. So we’ve been doing this work for eight years, but I think CultureCon Foundation is really going to solidify our philanthropic efforts. And so we’ve already been giving out grants and we’ve already been giving out free workshops, but now all of those opportunities will live under the foundation. And so the foundation will be dedicated to making sure that creatives have resources and infrastructure and just a go-to place when they need that feedback. And then last but not least, CultureCon Festival returns October 3rd and 4th in New York City, and that’s where all of these different events come together.

CultureCon Cafe will have a presence there. CultureCon Creative Business School will have a stage there. So if you missed Creative Business School throughout the year, we have a whole stage for business. You can sit on that stage all day and learn how to get your business off the ground. And then of course, CultureCon Foundation will be giving out grants as well. And so our hope is that you can tap into a part of CultureCon during every part of the year, and by October, it all makes sense that we really are here to meet our community wherever they are. 

The idea of Creative Business School is really intriguing. What’s the exact format for that?

Creative Business School originated with a good strategist and friend of mine, Alex Wolf, and CultureCon inherited it. So, we’re really taking it to the next level, but it’s going to start in a video format—a course—and CultureCon will be the first case study. What we really want is to start with a property that people are familiar with and use that as a vehicle for business one-on-one. We’re going to be talking about trademarks and LLCs and business credit cards and hiring people and interns. And we’ll be using CultureCon as the case study of that, and as you’re seeing us build CultureCon on the way to the festival, you’ll also have this kind of case study to follow along on the way to CultureCon. Now, once we get through our first course, our digital course, we’re going to get feedback from our students because I love an in-person meetup. 

So, the first rendition of CultureCon Creative Business School will start with a video capsule course and it’ll come equipped with worksheets and every single week we’ll have a different specific topic. So I will be the professor for the first capsule collection, and then we’ll be tapping in different members of the Creative Class and CultureCon friends to teach even more specific courses throughout the year. 

What does success look like for CultureCon Collective for you in this first year?

I think for us, it’s really meeting the needs of the community. We are really here to steward this platform, and I think we’re in a really unprecedented time where there’s so many different needs. We have 300,000 Black women out of work. We also have creatives who need guidance. We have so much going on, and we recognize that CultureCon cannot be everything to everyone, which is why I started with—sometimes you just need to be around great people. Sometimes that’s what we’re going to be able to offer is take your mind off of your nine to five and come get around some great people. And so to us, I think success looks like can we offer some form of relief from a world that is very, very harsh/ And whether that relief is education, so that you don’t feel so lost, or community,  where you can talk to someone and say, “oh, it’s not as bad as I thought it was.”

We really are in the service industry. For us, it’s remaining open to feedback and understanding that people will give you feedback 80% of the time because they love you and they want to see you do better. And so we’re open to feedback, we’re open to growing, and I think we want to continue to grow with our community. 

Given these smaller doses of CultureCon throughout the year, how is the festival itself going to expand in October?

I love that question, because I think we’ve been putting a lot of pressure on two days. It’s a lot of pressure to ask people to go to 40 panels in two days and then see all the activations and then meet 12,000 people. This ecosystem, this collective makes it more sustainable. If you’ve been following my theory of creativity, it is all about sustainability and what is a life that can sustain you? And we know that two days is very inspiring, but that’s not going to be enough to sustain you for a year round of problems. CultureCon Festival will really amplify all of those little snacks we’ve had throughout the year. So I think for us, our demographic is pretty wide. It’s 18 to 45. Now, an 18-year-old is very different in their entrepreneurial journey than a 40-year-old person. 

Sometimes, what we run up against on the stages is feedback like “this is too juvenile for me,” right? But then we’ll have feedback from our college students, “This is way too senior for me.” And so our hope is that by breaking it into these different verticals, by the time we get to CultureCon, a lot of that programming we’re going to see this year is going to be a lot more technical, a lot more advanced. We’re going to have a lot more breakout groups based on your skill level. I’m excited about the Creative Business stage the most because we’ve kind of been holding back. We didn’t want to get too technical for someone who had just started a business and we’re talking to them about scaling and selling a business, and it feels like we’re out of reach. 

So, our hope is that if you participate in creative business school in the summer, that by the time you come to CultureCon in the fall, you’re ready to start at level 2.0. And so I think this is going to really set our community up for success so that they understand what to anticipate when we get to the big festival. In terms of the cafe, we really want to have more networking this year. I know that word gets a really bad rep, but networking does not have to mean transactional. I think networking doesn’t even have to mean work. Sometimes you just need to meet other people who think differently than you. And so we’re going to be doing speed dating, networking, and meeting other people. I’m an introvert. So I know how cringe it can be to walk into a room of 12,000 people. And so this year’s CultureCon is going to feel like a big conference broken down into small little bits, and I think that people will really enjoy how easy it is to digest as a conference this year. 

That’s really interesting, because I’m over a decade deep into my career and I still struggle the most with networking. As you said, it sometimes can come across as transactional—

And so much of it is reminding ourselves that we’re all there for that reason. I think a lot of people at CultureCon can feel that. I just had a friend tell me she was in line for the food truck and got a VP role at Kickstarter because she just talked to the man in front of her. So, it doesn’t always have to look so formal like we think it looks. Sometimes it really is just saying, “I like your shoes,” and seeing what happens from there. 

CultureCon Café will be in eight cities; so if you’re not in one of those major cities, will there be some type of online presence to supplement that?

For the cafe, those are only going to be in-person opportunities, but we still are going to be doing monthly office hours. So if you aren’t in one of those cities, we have office hours, which are basically our digital connections. We have all types of programs and office hours. One of them is Works in Progress. So Works in Progress is basically like a digital show and tell. You can come into office hours and show a project that you’re working on, you’re maybe not quite done and get feedback from the digital community at CultureCon. So, Works in Progress will be back, and Office Hours will be back. Those are going to be, again, a little less technical than Creative Business School, but we’re going to be talking about soft skills, like navigating corporate, getting promotions, what being on a PIP means. So, if you’re not in the physical eight cities, come to one or we’ll see you online at office hours.

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