BeNeXT Launch — SXSW × La Peña Art Gallery
When BeNeXT Global launched at SXSW, Pepsi stood with us. The launch took the form of a three-day institutional takeover of La Peña Art Gallery in downtown Austin, a pop-up gallery, music shows, and the public unveiling of BeNeXT's hemispheric leadership thesis to more than 2,800 participants across the SXSW week. Pepsi's sponsorship, secured through Rafael Hernandez and Pepsi's head of event sponsorship, anchored the production alongside Tito's Handmade Vodka and Jarritos.
Three full days of programming inside La Peña: art exhibits, live music, drinks, and the structured informational sessions that introduced BeNeXT Global to a public audience for the first time. Project authors, civic leaders, students, and SXSW attendees passed through a single Austin venue that, for those three days, became the institutional doorway of a new hemispheric institution.
The public debut of BeNeXT Global as an institution. A sponsorship that gave the launch the production scale and audience reach SXSW makes possible, and a continuing Pepsi relationship that has supported BeNeXT in less visible ways in the years since. The institutional thanks remains: Pepsi was there when it mattered most.
