Lucas Leverett

Official neighborhood organizations are integral part of the function and structure of the city of Grand Rapids. Many fundamental civic engagement and community operations are addressed via these sanctioned groups.

Board Member role, focusing on launch roadmap and brand.

Seated for TEDxNashville committee planning and sub-committee activities dealing with Audience Experience. Onsite, coordinated the deployment of experiential assets for both the show and sponsor activations.

TEDx is a grassroots initiative, created in the spirit of TED’s overall mission to research and discover “ideas worth spreading.” TEDx brings the spirit of TED to local communities around the globe through TEDx events. These events are organized by passionate individuals who seek to… Show more

Seated for TEDxNashville committee planning and sub-committee activities dealing with Audience Experience. Onsite, coordinated the deployment of experiential assets for both the show and sponsor activations.

TEDx is a grassroots initiative, created in the spirit of TED’s overall mission to research and discover “ideas worth spreading.” TEDx brings the spirit of TED to local communities around the globe through TEDx events. These events are organized by passionate individuals who seek to uncover new ideas and to share the latest research in their local areas that spark conversations in their communities. TEDx events include live speakers and recorded TED Talks, and are organized independently under a free license granted by TED. These events are not controlled by TED, but event organizers agree to abide by our format, and are offered guidelines for curation, speaker coaching, event organizing and more. They learn from us and from each other. More than 3000 events are now held annually. Show less

Dragon Con is one of the largest pop media and geek culture events in the world, based in Atlanta, Georgia. I began on the staff as a member of the VIP transportation department, providing airport shuttle service for various celebrity guests. I was a founding member of the Dragon Con TV effort which began as a very small grassroots overlap with the tech department, later branching into its own full-fledged videography and production team.

Working with in the transportation wing, I… Show more

Dragon Con is one of the largest pop media and geek culture events in the world, based in Atlanta, Georgia. I began on the staff as a member of the VIP transportation department, providing airport shuttle service for various celebrity guests. I was a founding member of the Dragon Con TV effort which began as a very small grassroots overlap with the tech department, later branching into its own full-fledged videography and production team.

Working with in the transportation wing, I developed a robust experience and network with talent from various mediums, their agents and management, and peer departments providing on-site VIP experiential services. In my video duties, I provided live event coverage for attendees, streaming subscribers, and in-room viewing across multiple downtown hotels. I was also the show director for video coverage of the professional wrestling event held during the weekend.

After the 2017 event, I began a hiatus from staffing but we’ll be looking at a potential return. Show less

Billed as "The Greatest Show (& Tell) on Earth," and officially sanctioned by Make Magazine, the NMMF was a gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. From engineers to artists to scientists to crafters, a Maker Faire is a venue for these “makers” to show hobbies, experiments, projects. This weekend event ran annually until the COVID-19 Pandemic, offering a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness. It has now… Show more

Billed as "The Greatest Show (& Tell) on Earth," and officially sanctioned by Make Magazine, the NMMF was a gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. From engineers to artists to scientists to crafters, a Maker Faire is a venue for these “makers” to show hobbies, experiments, projects. This weekend event ran annually until the COVID-19 Pandemic, offering a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness. It has now been revived as the TN Maker Fest. Show less

Not only was I honored to be asked to come “to the rescue” and revitalize Hypericon, it gave me the opportunity to continue my vision for a community that I was part of helping to create in the Nashville region. After many years of friendly market-sharing with the Hypericon team, and much awareness of their challenges, it was energizing to be involved in the creation of a new era.

We rebuilt the brand from the ground up, while honoring the history of its look and feel within a modern… Show more

Not only was I honored to be asked to come “to the rescue” and revitalize Hypericon, it gave me the opportunity to continue my vision for a community that I was part of helping to create in the Nashville region. After many years of friendly market-sharing with the Hypericon team, and much awareness of their challenges, it was energizing to be involved in the creation of a new era.

We rebuilt the brand from the ground up, while honoring the history of its look and feel within a modern context. New principles for brand experience quality, new livery and copy, definitive and structured brand standards, structured operational practices, budgets and a few bold risks spelled success with a drastic 5x increase in both attendance and awareness.

Through collaborative reinvention, we banished the dated term “speculative fiction” in favor of the much more visionary “What If” – riffing on a legendary comic title and boiling down the concept to a more common, modern phrasing.

The event moved into bigger, more ideal venues, recruited more serious and desirable guests for appearances and panels, diversified into a robust programming lineup and vendor/exhibitor offering, pushed the envelope of creative and inventive experiences, brought on more talented staffers, utilized details and meticulous venue space planning, and revolutionized the concept of lifetime memberships and crowd-funding support.

Complete overview: https://lucasleverett.com/pf/hypericon/
"What If" case study: https://lucasleverett.com/pf/whatif/ Show less

Non-profit educational organization focused on literacy via pop arts, producing the annual Hypericon convention in Nashville, TN.

Executive oversight of business and political affairs at the helm of a non-profit popular arts organization. Management of five-member Executive Committee, including Vice Presidents of major conference events.

I've been recognized as having put Tennessee on the map in the “geek culture” scene, masterminding the framework for this, the first non-profit organization for the “geek arts,” which produced two weekend festivals: Middle Tennessee Anime Convention (MTAC) and Geek Media Expo… Show more

Executive oversight of business and political affairs at the helm of a non-profit popular arts organization. Management of five-member Executive Committee, including Vice Presidents of major conference events.

I've been recognized as having put Tennessee on the map in the “geek culture” scene, masterminding the framework for this, the first non-profit organization for the “geek arts,” which produced two weekend festivals: Middle Tennessee Anime Convention (MTAC) and Geek Media Expo (GMX), for over 15 years. Sponsored events drew over 15,000 people annually, involving budgets in excess of a quarter-million dollars, with year-round marketing/promotion and advance internet ticket sales. The organization and its productions quadrupled in size under my leadership.

During this time, I led the acquisition and revitalization of the Nashville Zombie Walk, twice, each time establishing this popular charitable food drive as a prolific and festive event. I retain ownership of this event, though it has been on hiatus starting with the pandemic, and is currently seeking new, local, personnel to successfully re-launch. Show less

Headed up visibility organization and teams for street-side and polling-place events. Using a well-researched plan, we deployed to early vote locations and high-traffic urban routes. This plan also included careful deployment of yard signs and 8-foot signs in key locations. I ran point with the national advance team for visibility during media coverage of the Belmont Debate and organized a march of over 600 supporters which descended on the quad and led to extensive notation of the crowd on-air… Show more

Headed up visibility organization and teams for street-side and polling-place events. Using a well-researched plan, we deployed to early vote locations and high-traffic urban routes. This plan also included careful deployment of yard signs and 8-foot signs in key locations. I ran point with the national advance team for visibility during media coverage of the Belmont Debate and organized a march of over 600 supporters which descended on the quad and led to extensive notation of the crowd on-air by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Since the primary in 2007, I provided local grassroots online community support by way of a URL and email addresses used in the various stages of the campaign. My graphic design skills were consistently relied upon in the course of the campaign as well. I was a founding member of the Nashville Loves Barack Obama group from which the Tennessee campaign was borne. Show less