What Really Happened At ULTA BEAUTY WORLD 2026... | BiancaReneeToday

Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today. And today we're going to talk about Ulta Beauty World. I know it already came and went, but I've seen some comments that are just straight up lies and I just wanted to address them because you sound crazy. So we're going to talk about what is Ulta Beauty World, what actually happened there, and your best possible way to snag a ticket for next year. So first of all, what is Ulta Beauty World? If you missed it somehow, it's that event you might have seen online where people are dragging bags upon bags of free beauty products, I'm talking skincare, makeup, perfume, everything that could be at Ulta Beauty, they probably got it for quote unquote free. And when I say free, that means they paid $165 for a ticket to Ulta Beauty World and then everything else was included in the ticket price. So for $165, they got a swag bag valued at over $2,000 and this year we got Bae's carry-on luggage. The bottom roller bag is $320 and the top carry-on is $108. So if you got just the top bag empty with maybe one NARS foundation, you've already got your money back. But instead, we left with this. This much product from walking around, going from booth to booth, and from what comes inside the roller bag. So getting your money's worth is definitely an understatement. If you love beauty products, it's the Super Bowl of beauty. If you want to see what products were just in my roller bag that comes with your ticket, make sure you go follow me on Instagram at MizBeyondBrené and watch this video. But aside from what you get in the luggage, if you just walked in, got your bag and left, you're good. But almost every brand at Ulta Beauty World has a booth and then you go to the booth, there's like a little experience, maybe a photo booth, maybe some type of activation, something cutesy, spin the wheel, and you get more product. It could be travel size, some brands were giving out full size. And by the end of the event, brands don't want to ship anything home because that's going to cost a lot of money. So they're basically throwing product at you, begging you to take the product. When you first walk in, you do get a little booklet and you're supposed to go to each booth and you get a little stamp, that's how they know that you've already been at the booth. But there's really no time to double dip because you have so many booths to go to. So I don't think the little stamper is necessary because like I said at the end of the day, brands are just begging you to take more product because they don't want to ship it. So pro tip, if you're going to go next year, stay until the end of the event and then circle back to your favorite brands, you probably can get a second, third, or fifth product. Now this past year was only the second year of Ulta Beauty World because it really was not made for us consumers or influencers. It was literally made for Ulta Beauty employees. So this is a chance for brands to make a cute little booth to really show off to Ulta Beauty employees so that they can learn about the products. So when we walk in the store, we're like, hey, I need some curly hair products. They're going to be like, oh, I just learned about this product from Ulta Beauty World called CurlSmith and now they'll direct us to the CurlSmith section or, oh, I need some products for traveling. What would you recommend? A teak, saw, shampoo bars, and then they can kind of hype up your brand. So all the brands are like really wanting the employees to love their products and educate them so they can further educate us customers when we walk in the store. That was all it's supposed to be like a big thank you, give back to their employees and corporate. But then Ulta Beauty was like, you know what, we have this whole shebang. This is kind of like pretty excessive. What if we open it up to the public and like sell tickets for the next day? And that's what happened year one. I also went year one with CurlSmith and CurlSmith actually had me like make a video to promote the event because nobody knew about it. Nobody knew what it was. And even I'm like trying to tell people to buy tickets and I've never been either because it's the first time. So I didn't even know what to expect. But I did know there was a good goodie bag, but we had no idea how much product we were going to leave with. And the first year I was pregnant in heels dragging out product and I technically didn't even have a ticket. So the first year I did not get a swag bag, but everything I got was just from walking around and that alone was enough. So I don't even think Ulta Beauty was expecting this type of craziness. Hence why the first year actually felt empty. Like there wasn't a lot of foot traffic and that's why there was so much extra product for all the people that were able to secure a ticket. Now year two I'm pretty sure they doubled the attendance from like 1,500 to 3,000 tickets and those tickets sold out in like three seconds. I heard that you had a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than getting an Ulta Beauty World ticket. I myself was in line with all my friends in a group chat. We're all trying to get tickets talking about we're all going to go together and meet up in Florida and then we'll go to Disney World. We had plans. We had hotels booked. None of us got tickets. Those little green dots of doom just stopped at three dots. I think I got to three dots and yes things sell out. Yes we were all disappointed, but there's only so many tickets and because it went so viral last year because you get so much bang for your buck, of course there was like what 50,000 people on the website trying to get 3,000 tickets. Of course they're going to sell out. The only thing that I wish could have been different is if right after three seconds I wish it would have just said sold out because we all were waiting on our computers for like an hour and it's been sold out. So maybe next year they can figure that out so that when it's sold out we just know it's sold out. But it really was luck of the draw. It was people that were on right when it launched and those people, including myself, still didn't get a ticket. So it's really just a numbers game and it was purely luck. But now let's talk about the controversy. Everybody tried to say like oh influencers took all the tickets. Brands gave influencers a secret code and the mystery code is how they bought tickets. Y'all just be making up stuff sometimes like what? I was in like three group chats full of influencers and none of us secured a ticket, let alone all the other influencer friends that I have. I personally don't know any influencer that was successfully able to purchase a ticket. It literally just sold out from consumers. That's just the truth. If I had a secret influencer code, I would have been shared that with more of my influencer friends and then we all would have been there. So one, there was no secret influencer code. But here is the comment that really set me off. I literally saw at least two or three comments saying everyone at Ulta Beauty World was an influencer. The only content I'm seeing is from influencers. I need you to think about things before you say it sometimes. Of course the only content you're seeing about Ulta Beauty World is from content creators. I was able to go through a brand, which we're going to get into that, and ask someone who was in the building. I can confirm with you that maybe 97% of the convention were people that were not content creators, not influencers, that all purchased tickets. I can probably count on one hand how many influencers I saw there. And then the Ulta Beauty Collective was there, obviously, as they should be. If you are part of Ulta Beauty's ambassador program, you should be at Ulta Beauty World. So that's like, I don't know, maybe 60. But then other invited influencers, we did not make a dent in the number of people there. So the people that are there are nurses, teachers, corporate baddies, people in retail, people with regular jobs. Do you think they're really going to walk in there and just start vlogging for their friends? No! You don't see videos from non-content creators because they're not content creators. They walked in the doors, saw all their favorite brands, and ran in and started racking up all the products. They're at home playing with their makeup that they just got. They're not making vlog recaps of what just happened like the influencers that were there. I don't know about your friends, but my non-content creator friends haven't posted on Instagram since Christmas. The only reason my non-content friends have an Instagram story is because they're reposting my story. And most of my non-content creator friends, their pages are private because they don't want their students or nosy employees watching them get ratchet on the weekends. So no, you're not going to see a lot of content from non-content creators and the content you are going to see is going to be from influencers and content creators that are just starting off. I am so happy for the smaller micro-influencers, micro-content creators that were able to secure a ticket by purchasing because this is a great opportunity to meet brands, get free product, and give you something to review to build up your growing platform. So the only content creators that I know that bought a ticket were considered micro-influencers that now had an amazing opportunity to talk to all these brands that they want to work with. Every brand was allowed one influencer ticket. So that gave everybody one opportunity to partner up with one of their favorite brands and take their one influencer ticket. And fortunately, after being nervous about not getting one via payment, I was invited by Etique, a brand that I love working with and I was chosen as their one influencer. And then two of my other friends also got to go because they were invited by other brands because networking and making relationships is important. So that is how you saw me with two of my other content friends because we all just had the opportunity to work with a brand. And honestly, one of my friends wasn't invited as the influencer ticket. She kind of was just put on as like being part of the brand's booth, almost like as an employee or a vendor. So she was able to attend, but didn't get an official Ulta Beauty World ticket. So they didn't even give her a goodie bag because she was there as a guest of the brand. So if you think that influencers took all the tickets, some were there that didn't even get the bag that came with the ticket, because that's how much we didn't take the ticket. The number of bags and tickets available had nothing to do with the actual influencers that were invited. There's the tickets for sale and the number of tickets for influencers. And those are two separate baskets. If it's better for you mentally just to think that you never had a chance and then you want to blame somebody and influencers are the bad guys that took all the tickets and that's just going to make you feel better. Sure. But this is the actual truth. It really was a brand for Ulta Beauty consumers. And I personally loved seeing non-content creators leave with that much swag because you know who is the last person to need that much product? Influencers. Yeah, we get that stuff mailed to us all the time. You should see the bottom of my floor right now. Like from here up looks really cute and neat. Below me, disaster. Product that I haven't even unbagged from Ulta Beauty World. And this is me giving away half of it. And like me, the other handful of influencers that I did see there, they all did giveaways. So I really don't know who you're mad at because the ones that went shared their product with either their followers or their family or just other people in general, the housekeeping at the hotel. Half of our product was spread amongst people that support us or that we just felt like deserved it. And I'm coming to you from the perspective of three different types of people. I'm coming to you as a consumer of beauty products, as an influencer of beauty products, and as an event coordinator. I used to be an event planner. So I understand ticket sales, capacity, venue capacity, and the importance of being at events like this. So instead of being mad at Ulta Beauty, let's think what you want differently. You want them to sell more tickets. Sure. But if they sell more tickets, there's going to be lines at the event. Right now, there's not really any lines. You get through everybody pretty quickly and you're on to the next booth. Now, the only time there was a line at Ulta Beauty was if there was a service. Some people were doing brow waxing. Some people were getting their ears pierced. Some people were getting their hair straightened or curled. There might be a little bit of a line for that, but for the most part, things are moving. So if Ulta Beauty adds more tickets, there's going to be long lines for things. It's going to be super crowded. It's going to be shoulder to shoulder dragging bags over everybody. And honestly, it might not even be the same when it comes to the bags because now there's more people, so there's less product to give away. So I can just imagine they open up more tickets. Now everyone's happy. Then you get there, now you're mad because it's overcrowded, you're mad because you're waiting in long lines all day, and you're mad because now your goodie bag is only this size with four pieces of lipstick because there's now more product that has to be spread amongst everybody. So honestly, I think they could add maybe a thousand more people depending on the venue. I do think one tote bag is probably enough, but I feel like they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. But either way, if you want to be there next year, it's actually coming to California. So I have to be there because now I can just take my product and put it in the van and drive it home instead of worrying about the weight capacity on a plane is lit. It's going to be in Anaheim and it usually happens in April. I don't think they've announced like the date or the ticket sales yet, but it is going to be in Anaheim, California, next to Disneyland. So if I get in, y'all could just meet me outside and I'll just be passing out stuff out the door with whether you got a ticket or not. So one, I am hoping to be there. But how can you get a ticket yourself? Well, it's just going to be luck. You don't need to get mad. You don't got to cancel all to be worth. There's only so many tickets. So if there's this many people, knowing this many tickets, you have to understand numbers, capacity. And for my content creators, remember, if they do the same thing as last year, every brand gets one ticket. So once we get close and tickets are announced, I would start pitching yourself to your favorite brands as their one brand ambassador. You could do a meet and greet at the booth. I personally was like educating people on the products of the booth, helping pass out freebies, pitch yourself to your favorite brands so that you can take their one influencer ticket. And if they don't have an influencer ticket, see if you could be one of their like vendors, be more working the booth so that you could still get it. And there's also a bunch of giveaways happening. So some brands didn't give their ticket to an influencer. Some brands used it as a giveaway moment where if you commented on their post, you were able to possibly win a ticket to Ulta Beauty World. And then Ulta Beauty World also had their own giveaway as well. So make sure you're just following all your favorite brands, follow Ulta Beauty World, be on top of it. Follow me on Instagram. I will make sure to announce as soon as tickets go on sale and just be ready. So that is everything I think you need to know about Ulta Beauty World. Now you know the truth. Don't believe the hype, the conspiracy of angry people online. That's actually what happened. It really is for consumers and that could be you if you're lucky. Make sure to follow me on Instagram at MsBiancaRenee on Instagram, threads, TikTok. I'll be sure to announce as soon as I hear when tickets go on sale. If you have any other questions, leave a comment below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give me a thumbs up and subscribe. I post new videos on Sundays. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching. Bianca Renee, today.