Substack’s “Once – From a morning pep talk to writers about getting rich and having fun, to a packed schedule of panels in SoHo, Substack’s first-ever media summit ended with pizza-fueled conversations and a curbside spillover when the rooftop hit capacity.
At 10 a.m. on Thursday, the energy at Substack’s first-ever media summit felt less like a conference and more like a promise. Platform CEO Chris Best told the room that writers “deserve to get rich” and should “have fun.”
By the time the day was over—just after 10 p.m.—the tone had cooled into something quieter. Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie was eating pizza in a podcast studio office space with other lingering media folks, still surrounded by the industry conversation that the event had been built to spark.
The summit itself was titled “The Once and Future Media Forum. ” and it took over a sprawling five-story building in the center of SoHo in New York City. It gathered Substack’s content creators and journalists. alongside founders of new media startups. turning the space into a full-day mix of panels. themed corners. and casual hangouts.
Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg kicked off the day’s series of panels by interviewing TBPN’s president. Dylan Abruscato. about the tech talk show and its acquisition by OpenAI. Sundberg asked Abruscato to compare his influence to something older and more cultural: she told him his work was like that of the Velvet Underground. saying the rock band’s ripple effect inspired many others to start bands.
“I feel like the projects that you worked on have a similar influence,” Sundberg said.
From there. the event leaned further into the creator economy—media figures took the stage to talk about video on Substack and the future of media from the perspective of content creators. The venue also leaned into old-school media aesthetics: there was a museum of media artifacts. a branded pool you could ogle at but were forbidden to swim in. and a café/rooftop where creatives could prep for panels downstairs and sip iced coffee.
Even the way staff interacted with attendees carried the event’s pitch. Substack employees wore lanyards with signs around their necks that read: “I work at Substack. I can make yours better. Ask me anything.” People were soaking it in fast. Someone referred to the event as “Substack Coachella.”
After a full day of panels. the summit closed with a “Substack House Party. ” complete with trays of drinks and bite-sized snacks. The rooftop kept reaching capacity. triggering a one-in. one-out policy that didn’t so much control the crowd as funnel it. “Let me take you into the night” was less a tagline than a cue: when the venue shut down the rooftop right on time at 9 p.m. guests poured into the main bar. Within minutes, the party was cut off there as well. People spilled down the several flights of stairs and gathered on the curb.
An after-after party was quickly improvised.
That’s where the day’s cast became personal—Substack employees, including McKenzie, and a group of creators walked down the block to a SoHo office space for Osprey Studios, a digital media and podcast company. The guest list all day had kept circling back to familiar names from across modern media.
Speakers from the day included The Free Press’ Suzy Weiss. whose sister is Bari Weiss; Mad Realities cofounder Alice Ma; and actor-writer Ben Sinclair. known for his HBO series “High Maintenance.” The room also included media reporters like Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright. who publishes his newsletter on the Substack competitor Beehiiv. along with outlets such as Bloomberg. Axios. Semafor. and Adweek.
Substack-powered outlets were also present, including Byline and The Metropolitan Review. Creators rounded out the mix, including Substack food writer and video star Caroline Chambers, and Wahlid Mohammad, who got his start on Vine.
Pizza brought the day into focus for Mary Alice Miller, who worked at Vanity Fair for nearly a decade. Over pizza with the after-party crowd, she described the atmosphere with an emphasis on how familiar it felt.
“It feels like media in the early aughts,” Miller told me.
She said “casual hangs” like the one unfolding were also commonplace.
For all the optimism and the partying. there was also one disappointment hanging in the air—an unfulfilled promise of a surprise special musical performance. The night’s anticipation had sparked guesses, including someone tossing out Charli XCX, who has a Substack. I asked whether the performer was Bob Dylan (it definitely wasn’t) or Jeff Tweedy. the Wilco front man who also has a Substack.
Instead, it turned out the show was supposed to be a James Brown impersonator. It never got a chance to perform.
Later, the chatter shifted to a bigger wish: there was an aspiration to secure Madonna for the night. The person who said it to me framed it as something that didn’t happen—at least not this time. “I really wish that came true,” I heard, “Perhaps next year.”
The through-line was clear by the time the rooftop had closed and the night moved to the sidewalk: Substack’s summit didn’t just discuss the future of media—it recreated the old magnetic pull of magazine parties. panels. and people talking late into the night. And if you felt the industry’s momentum, it wasn’t in a speech. It was in the crowd that kept showing up, one stage and one staircase at a time.
Substack media summit The Once and Future Media Forum Chris Best Hamish McKenzie Dylan Abruscato OpenAI acquisition SoHo creator economy newsletter platforms The Free Press Beehiiv video on Substack