LIVE SaaStr Insider Webinar: SaaStr Annual Sponsors Know Before You Go

Cool. I'm gonna go slideshow. Okay, amazing. So we wanted to do a little bit of a— make sure I have the right one up. I do. Okay, cool. A little bit of a know before you go with everyone since the annual is getting really close. And just based on some of the questions we've gotten from, you know, our sponsor teams or just individually to us, we thought it'd be good to do maybe like a full recap of the most important things to know. And also that way you have this deck that you can use afterwards too, which has a lot of really great information. As well. So with that, we'll get started. Since there's a lot in this deck, we'll try to cover as much as possible. And as always, if you guys have questions during the webinar, please feel free to drop it into the Q&A and we'll answer as many questions as we can. So, um, SaaStr Annual. So this year, I think maybe a question we've got is like, how is this shipping up to maybe previous annuals? Just in our year over year for returning sponsors, etc. I think the biggest change that most of you know for sponsors especially is that we're moving the sponsor halls inside for a lot of reasons. One being, I don't know if we were just talking about this, it's been really hot in California. We're trying to keep a little more climate controlled inside. And for a lot of reasons, you know, a lot of people were in those big hangars last year and they, they became a little bit of a hub. And so we're trying to concentrate the sponsor areas specifically where most people kind of gravitated towards last year. So, you know, we're expecting up to 12,000 people. It is 3 days, right? So you might not see everybody all at once. Always bear that in mind, right? We do get some people who come for single days of the 3. We get super fans who come for all 3 days. We get a lot of investors on the last day because that's like our meet-a-VC day. So yeah, it's kind of a mix throughout the 3 days, but there'll be a steady flow of traffic for sure. It's, for those who are new, it's indoor and outdoor, so it's kind of a bit of a festival style. And this is actually our 9th FASTR annual, so really exciting stuff. You know, just some quick stats here. And then I think you guys all know this by now, but we are indeed at the San Mateo County Event Center. I've said this before, but if you haven't been on these webinars or if you're newer, it's a really great idea to go on Google Maps and do like the, or Google Earth even, and do like the virtual tour of the San Mateo County Event of the scale. I know we share a lot of maps and photos, but it really does not do it justice, even for our team who's been there 3 years now, of like the size and scale of everything. It is 40 acres. It is a lot of walking. I would definitely say like if you want to be, you know, in business clothes at the booth, I would bring a comfy change of shoes so that you can get around the campus because it is quite big. So, and it's, it's, it's a long time, you know, between load-in and then 3 full days. It's a lot on your feet, so definitely plan for that accordingly. In, you know, how you stack for teams, travel, etc., and just your on-site kind of game plan and course of action. So it's a really big campus out in San Mateo. One thing we want to call out, and this is a newer slide for folks because we've been getting a few questions on this, I think it's just because of the nature of how fast the event is approaching, is what are the best ways to get around the campus and also get around just Fast Triannual in general. So In my opinion, and David can chime in as well, I think the best course of action, even if you are from out of town, is to honestly rent a car and park at the San Mateo County Event Center. The parking is free. It is first come, first serve. So we dropped a link here. And what I'll do actually while I chat is let me drop a link to these slides in the chat because I think people really liked that last week. So let me do that real quick. Hold on just before I—

Yeah, I'll just comment on the shuttle that runs from the Crowne Plaza. And I believe if— well, one, if you're staying at the Crowne Plaza, you're all set. Use the shuttle. If you're staying near the Crowne Plaza, a lot of folks walk to the Crowne Plaza to grab the shuttle. That's totally recommended. And then there's overflow parking at the Crowne Plaza, right, Amelia?

Yep, that is correct. So yeah, so the shuttle's great. We've got— I think the times might be on your— calls it out on here somewhere. But yeah, so if you're staying at Crown Plaza, which I know is currently sold out, there are nearby hotels that are not sold out that are walkable too. And to David's point, you could grab the shuttle that we have running there. The hours are pretty much like the hours you would need to be for a sponsor. So it's Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, pretty much like 7 in the morning until like 8 o'clock at night. So it runs, you know, fairly early to get there early and then it runs fairly late if you're like the last person leaving the annual. So that's a good idea. If you, if you're, if you're not at Crown though, I, you know, and you're staying nearby, maybe 10 minutes away from the San Mateo County Event Center, again, highly recommend you request parking. It's first come, first serve. It's a very massive lot that we haven't had an issue with us like running out of parking, but there's, you know, if we do, we'll direct you to the overflow at Crowne Plaza to grab the shuttle. But basically, if you request right now, you'll get one because there's still parking spaces available. So if you request a parking, I just dropped the slide link. In the chat, you guys can click that request parking. It's also just on safterannual2023.com if you go to the attendee portal, request parking. Honestly, I, I, I like this idea because, you know, you're gonna go more places than you probably think you're gonna go, right? It's a massive 40-acre property, and because it's so massive, it's actually a little bit maybe harder than something like a Moscone per se, where like, you know, there's like Starbucks or Target or whatever. That's walkable. Like, there is a Starbucks that's walkable, but it's like a 20-minute walk, right? So it's like you'd have to factor that in, um, of timing of like, it's not just I'm gonna bop across the like streets.

We're gonna have lots of coffee too.

We are. Yeah, yeah, for sure, right? But if you need your caramel macchiato, um, you know, or if you've got to run to go get something, or if your team ends up going out to again just like grab things or be places or go meet with customers, um, or do anything else, right? Like, I highly recommend getting a rental car versus Ubering because for the last years, and I don't think this year will be any different. Um, the Uber and Lyft prices have surged during SaaStr Annual, but like, because it's, it's such a hotspot, right, of where you're going on the map, like, it is surge pricing. It can become very pricey even just to go 10 minutes in Uber. Um, and I know like the wait times can get really long too if you're waiting in line, much like Coachella, um, like everyone else for an Uber. So So keep that in mind. You know, I do recommend getting a rental car and maybe just sharing it across your team. It ends up being cheaper than Ubers because rental cars are fairly inexpensive these days just to grab at the airport. So that's our recommendation. Or if you're local, if you have a team member that's local, they can just request parking there. It's really easy. Plus then you like, you know, you have the car handy. You're, you're not trapped, if you will. If you're going to be on site long days as well, we do— I put a photo here of the pedicabs that we did. These are coming back this year. We do have an amount of pedicabs and trains trams that will be looping on campus only. And so like what they do is like within the property, because it's so big, like if you're trying to get to a stage or you, you're trying to get to a specific area of the campus, like they will literally drive you over there and save you a little bit of walking. And the tram is on like a constant loop, so you could take it around the campus for when you're on campus.

Yeah, if you love the pedicabs and you see where it says SASTRA '22, that could be your logo. You could sponsor the pedicabs. There's still an opportunity for that. We'll talk about it later. But, uh, yeah, I think they were sponsored in '21. They were— they look great.

So yeah, yeah, good shout there. Okay, cool. I'm gonna keep rocking and rolling. In terms of hotels, again, we chatted about this. I know Crown Plaza is sold out because that's where the shuttles are. There are nearby ones that are not listed here, but there are also these again that are super close by. They also have their own parking. I believe it's included. Don't quote me on that, but these are some really great options that are within 10 minutes. There's obviously other ones as well. So that's not an inclusive list, but just maybe a subtle reminder to book your travel if you have not yet. Already. We've kind of been through the agenda, so I'm just gonna breeze through these slides and just call out some reminders on that. You know, it is long days, and so we talk a lot about on these webinars, like shifting your teams, making sure you have, you know, enough capacity to have people enjoy different parts of Annual. As you can see from this on the campus map, which will show, like, there's a lot going on at Annual outside of the booth as well. Like, there's— and even within, like, the hangars, like, there's brain dates, there's stages. There's, you know, the coworking space, there's the cantina, there's a lot of places to network and take advantage of, you know, to spread your brand out there that are not just your booth, that are, you know, open to all attendees and all sponsors. So just some good things to call out here. I know some sponsors are using the agenda to kind of play up some of their swag items or their giveaways. So that's always a good idea too. Just really quickly on the campus and the venue. We shared this last week in depth, but there is a full campus map. So if you haven't been before, again, this is our stylized version of the campus map. So, you know, not to scale, but a really great place to come if you wanna get your bearings on like what's where. I know a lot of people have used this when they're doing booth selection just so they can get a sense of what's around it, like where the entry points are. And I'll say that there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of natural kind of flow paths for attendees. So you can see we've got, 2 main registration gates here. This is where a fair amount of the Ubers will drop off because that's where they're used to dropping off people for the San Mateo County Fair, which are right next door hangers where the sponsors are. So these are 2 giant hangars. Again, the scale doesn't do it justice on here, but they are, you know, as they are— if you were a sponsor last year, they are bigger than the space that was outside last year because now there's 2 of them and we've made them contiguous. So yeah, they're really big spaces. They've got 3 stages between the 2 of them, plus the coworking space, the cantina, the Brain Dates, some other fun activities. So yeah, these are definitely going to be the hub. All the lunches are in here, I will say too, as well as happy hour. So there's a lot of like beefed up and boosted times of where there'll be a lot of foot traffic. And then as well, you know, you come into more of the outdoor portion of the campus. This is more like a relax, you know, center for attendees in Sapphire Park. There's a stage here, so it's more like relax in the park and watch some content. We've got a new SaaStr Royale. This is literally a casino, not with real money, but could be a fun place if you wanna have some downtime from your booth. This whole section is like kind of a fun area just to go relax and also soak up a little sun if you've been inside. And then just coming to our other stages, you'll see we've got one 3 more stages here. Actually, there's Stage A, 2 workshop stages, and then something new we've done for this year is this container park slash zipline activations. So that is brand new, something I've always kind of wanted to do at SAS First, to have a container park style kind of like activation outside. And so we're finally doing that. So that'll be fun. The zipline, you know, literally goes right by it. So that'll be really fun for folks just as they're— again, if you need to take a break or if you have folks who are like, I'm gonna go get on that. Um, that's where you go find that. So fun, that's the campus map. Um, I'll chat a bit about floor plan and booth selection. So as many of you know, um, in the sponsor hall hangars— this is like a zoomed-in version of what I just showed that is just concentrated on the sponsor hall hangars. Um, these are quite big, these are quite expansive. I know we've gotten a lot of questions on like, if I haven't picked my booth yet, Is it my turn? Like, have I missed something? Like, I know some of you are worried about your shipments not saying your booth numbers. And I'll say this, there are a lot of sponsors this year, right? And so you might notice that it's taking maybe longer than last year to go through booth selection. We do this every year in order of contract signature date. So that's an important key thing to note. Like, once you sign— and keep in mind, we've had people who literally signed on site last year or immediately afterwards because they really they knew about booth selection placement, and they, you know, they used that as a lever. And so, and I want to get your thoughts on this too, David, in a second of like, this is so important for folks. And that's why, you know, when we get this question a lot, and every time we're like, okay, there's like, you know, there's X amount of people ahead of you. Either there's 2 people ahead of you, or someone today just asked me and I was like, there's 10 people ahead of you. It is in order of contract signature date. And just to be fair, we don't share anyone's order with anyone else, right? It's all confidential. It's just us and our sponsor team. We're just like, hey, it's your turn to pick. You don't know who else is in the round. You don't know who else is ahead or behind you. Like, it's not, you know, we keep it all fairly private and confidential so that you pick your selections and then people don't know your selection until, you know, it's confirmed. So we tell you first and then we update basically our sponsor hall map with those selections. So I'll show you what that looks like and I'll let David chime in a bit here on booth selection. But yeah, it's, it's I get it. It's a very fair question to ask our team, and we're trying to answer it as best we can of like, you know, there's XYZ people ahead of you, or you're 2 rounds more than the current round. But it does depend on how fast everybody ahead of you picks, right? We try and give people at least 48 hours to pick their booth once it is their turn. And then, you know, sometimes if something happens, we've got to go chase them down because again, we're very strict on doing it in order of contract signature date, which, you know, if you are one of the early ones to sign, hopefully you appreciate that, right? Of like, it is very much first come, first serve of I'm going to pick the, you know, usually the people who are first pick the perceived best spot.

Yeah, I'll just add a couple quick comments. Yep, I think Amelia said it really well. Look, we always offer our sponsors the opportunity to lock in their spots for next year on site at the event, and all the folks who have picked already mostly have done that, right? And so it's one of those like not-so-secret secrets that the best thing to do to get the best spot at SASTR is sign up early. And there's a lot of benefits to doing that on-site or within 30 days post-event is when we offer our sponsors the best rates and the best lock-in. So totally recommend it. The other thing I just want to call out is you don't really, you know, you'll get your booth location, it's coming soon. Don't— you don't have to wait to promote anything until that booth number comes. I don't think you need to go and say, "We're booth, you know, 312." I think, you know, just highlight like, "Hey, we're sponsoring SaaStr. We're a platinum sponsor. Come see us. Come see our speaker," whatever it is. The numbers don't matter that much. Is that right, Amelia? I don't think like you have to call out the number.

I agree. I would say, you know, it's actually unlike other traditional trade shows, and I know, you know, Salesforce is a sponsor of ours and they're hosting Dreamforce the week after. I know Dreamforce is really big on like booth numbers, right? It's just how, you know, they plan the floor. Like people are big on sharing out their booth numbers. They're less important at DASTR because people are going more based on visuals, right? Like we do have aisles, you can see like all the booths are in aisles. However, like, you know, it is, It's more prevalent of like, oh yeah, we're a platinum sponsor and by location. I think because of how we lay out the floor, right? Like when you go to Dreamforce, you're going to those expo halls that are straight booths. That's a bit different. And like, you know, the, some of the bigger sponsors here are around the cantina. Some of the golds are like by the Brain Dates or Cantina Stage B or one of the other stages or the coworking space. So, you know, there's, I was just gonna do a joke in the chat and I got distracted, sorry. There's a lot. There's a lot going on in these hangars, right? And so what I've seen work well for our, you know, for our sponsors of the annual is like rather than booth number, they go more by like what they're near. Like, oh, we're by the cantina. And people are like, okay, cool. Like I'm gonna go where the food is. Like that's where you are. And like then I'm gonna see your brand visually. People do that a lot. You know, booth numbers less prevalent. We, we do print them though. Again, not very heavily, right? Like this is, this is the main map that we use for attendees as well. And so it is mostly based on, you know, sections or locations if you will versus like booth actual number. So yes, so David points— that's a great call out. Also for Freeman, you know, if you're worried about your shipments, put your company name on it. They have the master list of the booth numbers. They will get it to the right place. So just make sure your company name is on it and you'll be all set there.

Hey, Amelia, back on the campus map, you don't have to go back to it, but there was a question about the best location for Uber pickup. Is there anything specific around that?

Yeah, so, so, you know, it It's, it's not, it's a little bit of dealer's choice because if you're leaving the campus, then it really is where you're closer to, right? And we call out some of the locations on the campus map. So I think it's a great question. Like if you look, for instance, at Gate 1 registration or Delaware registration, Delaware is a really huge slot. So I, I recommend that a lot for our sponsors just because that's the closest location to the hangar. So as a sponsor, I would say you're gonna wanna do Delaware, which is, it's listed on here. Maybe it's a little hard to read on the webinar, but it's 2650 South Delaware Street. Like, that's what I would recommend. Sometimes I will say the Ubers and Lyfts around the Bay Area are a little notorious for blowing by what you've put in. Like, they'll just, they'll see you're going to San Mateo and they'll just kind of like drive you over there and then like they'll pick a gate to leave you at. So I'd say as a sponsor, Like if you really wanna be sure that you are closest to your hangar so you don't have to— this is quite like, I mean, this isn't far, but like this is like if you're carrying stuff as a sponsor, definitely get dropped off there cuz it'll be a little bit easier to get to your booth. I would say major— again, majority of the Ubers and Lyfts will drop off at one of these two areas, either Gate 1 or Delaware, cuz that's kind of their default that they're used to for other events there. Like the county fair, which is a big one. Other big events usually use these two gates only. So that's kind of where they're used to going anyway. Some people do get dropped off or pick up at this number 1, which is 1346 Saratoga Drive. That's where the shuttles will by default drop off just because there's the space to do so. It's literally just the physical limitation of the parking lot, and that has a bigger gate, and so that's where the shuttles drive in. But yeah, I would say as a sponsor, try and— I would put in the Delaware address, which is on here, but also just flag to your Uber like, hey, I really want to go to like this Delaware Street entrance versus, you know, wherever you think you're gonna take me on the map, which some, you know, they've done it to me. Sometimes I put it in just to see and it's like half and half. Like, I don't know, it depends on the driver. Okay, health and safety. Again, we've hit this, but just a quick reminder, you know, our policy for this year is don't come sick. So there are passive temperature checks at FASTRA Annual. So I just wanna call that out. It is at each and every registration point, so there's no avoiding it. And if you're unwell, again, please swap out for a different team member. Make that known to your team so that somebody else can come. Again, we just don't want folks, you know, to come to Annual or leave Annual sick. So that's all I'll say on that for now. OK, a few things on registration. I've seen a lot of you sponsoring in the last week, which is super, super great. We do need the rest of you to keep sponsoring because I think when you register, you're going to notice a few things like As you're registering, like folks are like, oh shoot, like I have 5 passes and I need 2 more because somebody's going to rotate during their shifts during the, you know, 3 days plus the load-in day. It's a great call-out. It might be something that you're not really thinking of until you actually go to register your teams. But if you haven't yet, make sure you use the code that we've given you to unlock your sponsor all-access ticket type. If you've lost your code, that's okay. We've had a bunch of people ask in the last week. No shame, just ask us for it. We'll resend it to you so you can get your teams registered. A note on this, and I know we say it, but I, I'm gonna keep saying it, like we do daily ID and temperature checks. So it does mean that like if Amelia is coming even during load-in, Amelia cannot pick up Amelia and David's band. Like Amelia would have to come and then David would have to come. It also means in registration that anything you would need for your booth needs to be somebody registered to your sponsorship. What I mean by this is for any of you who have activations, any of you who have like production companies, or any of you who have maybe marketing agencies that are, or sales agencies that are helping you staff or do anything at your booth, all those people need to be registered under your sponsor all-access pass. So if David was my vendor bringing, you know, a sign for me, he would need to register as a sponsor all-access pass using the code, or I would have to register David like Everybody around your booth that's gonna be touching your booth or in your booth needs to be registered under your team. We've gotten a few questions about that, so just wanna call that out. Everyone that you would need for your things needs to be registered. And also, I'll, I'll explain in a bit when we get to the Freeman side of it. Keep in mind, anything, you know, that you cannot hand carry does need to go through Freeman as well for all these activations. So if you haven't reached out to Freeman yet, Now is the time to do so, which we'll cover off in a little bit. A quick note on customer passes. I know a lot of you have done this in the last 48 hours, so thank you. We are trying to get through them as fast as we can, but a lot of people submitted. So the, the posted deadline is tomorrow. I know we've been asked for some leniency on this, so we'll probably give you all another week to do this. Also, because now we have to process them all at once. So I would say you have another week to do this. You know, our hard— Our hard deadline on these is gonna be August 15th. That's gonna be the last day to get yours in, and I'll take it in process. So if you haven't done this yet, or if you haven't gotten a response yet, just bear in mind, like, everyone did it literally in the last 48 hours. So we're trying to get through them as fast as we can of like where we're at with your nominations. I would say for most folks so far that we've processed, it's been super easy of like, hey, this person was already coming. We kick it to the other two people and your customers are set. So that makes it really easy for us. So just a note there on bringing your customers to the annual. If it's something you haven't done yet, definitely click that link, get up to speed, reach out to me or David. This is a super great program that we offer just to our sponsors that we started last year of allowing, you know, to get more value. And I know it's 2023 and it's been a weird year for marketing and ROI, like This is a good way to do it, or even, you know, share with your CEO like, oh, we've got 5 customers coming to meet us on site already.

Yeah, I'll just add 2 things. Like, I always recommend looping sales, looping sales, because, you know, being in sales, it's just such a great touchpoint for the sales team to engage pipeline, right? And say, hey, we're a sponsor at SaaStr. We'd love for you to come as our guest. Just the gesture goes a long way. And 2, yeah, getting those pipeline opportunities on site to meet you. Engage in real life. Jason writes about that all the time. Nothing beats face-to-face interactions and such a great way to kind of get some really quick wins from SaaStr. And then also, of course, your customer success team, right? Bring your top customers to SaaStr. What another great way to wrap your arms around them and help, yeah, drive those relationships. So totally encourage it and highly recommend it. And let us know if we can help. Feel free to email me or Amelia if you have any questions.

Yep. And I just answered in the chat, like, what is the turnaround time for us to know? Like I said, everyone literally just submitted the last day. So it's gonna take, you know, a little bit longer, much like food selections. We're going in order of when people submitted. So we're just doing it in that order. So if you just submitted, it's probably gonna take a couple days to hear back. We're trying to expedite this as best we can, but keep in mind, like, we do have to cross-check of, like, people who are already attending, if they qualify. So it does take a little bit of time. Appreciate your guys' patience. But again, for folks that we've already ticketed, it's been, I would say, 80% or higher majority of folks that you nominate are able to come and be ticketed. So that should at least give you a little ease there. Okay, a few things we want to cover that's newer in this deck. I think we've talked about swag, but just again, as a reminder, For any of your activations, swag, furniture, anything that you're, you know, bringing in additionally in terms of people, anything that you're ordering via Freeman or maybe ETS, who's our AV vendor, it does need to all fit in your booth. So I'll, you know, I'll harp on that again in the next slide, but it does really need to all fit within the bounds of your booth. Why is that, you might ask? Well, one, everyone has a neighbor pretty much. Unless you're a Diamond. Everyone's got a neighbor, right? And so to be neighborly, we do want everything to fit within the bounds of your booth. I'm sure you wouldn't want somebody else's stuff in your booth and they don't want your, their, you know, your stuff in their booth and vice versa. So yes, it does need to all fit within the bounds of your booth. We'll talk about managed storage in a second, but that's just a quick note there. And it is something where like, you know, because we're in these giant expo hall hangars, we do have to have clear aisles for fire regulations. So it is something we're going to be a bit tight and strict on during event. Like if we see things spilling out, do plan that people are probably gonna say something to you because of how strict it is in terms of fire lanes and egress. So bear all that in mind. In terms of swag, again, if you look at the agenda, if you look at the days and the campus map, those will probably give you some really good ideas if you haven't ordered your swag yet for things that you'll wanna do. Doesn't mean you have to give swag to everyone. You know, bear in mind that a lot of people are doing swag at this event. You could do other things that are not swag, or you could do a contest to win like a bigger item and deliver it to them post-event, which we've seen a lot more of. But again, anything really needs to fit within the bounds of your booth. And I will say we're past the point now for any ancillary activations outside of the SAFTER ones. So anything that would, that would have been food and beverage would have had to have already been approved and secured by our sponsors. Success Team and the San Mateo County Event Center. So if you're thinking of something last minute, it is unfortunately too late to do anything food related specifically. And outside, we've gotten a lot of questions on beverages. Like, that includes food, that includes beverages. We're much past the deadline now, so I'll just call that out. We've had some, you know, questions on balloons or maybe like creative giveaways. Unfortunately, you know, because the venue is in the flight path of SFO. Certain things are just not allowed at this venue that are maybe allowed at other venues, even though we are outside and inside. Yeah, just take, take a note of that list there of what, what is and what's not allowed. And if you're unsure, just ask us. Okay, so beginning tomorrow, actually, Freeman will start to accept shipments to their advanced warehouse. This is how I recommend shipping for all of our sponsors, is to ship to the advanced warehouse. Again, if you don't have your booth number yet, just put your company name on it and put it on everything. I can't stress this enough. Like some people just put on the label and then like the label gets ripped in transit and then we literally have to open the box and try and suss out whose it is. Like if your logo's on it, we can suss it out. If it's not, then it's kind of hard for us until someone's like, hey, I'm missing a crate of XYZ things. And we're like, oh, these are yours. So yes, please ship to the advance warehouse with everything. It is the best thing to do because also Freeman will help you secure the labor you need since this is a union venue. Venue to get it to and from your booth as you need it. So they'll do managed storage for you. This is something you do have to do. It's mandatory with the venue. So if you're bringing boxes, this is what you got to do. I will say I would avoid shipping last minute to the venue directly. You know, they've— they can't accept anything at the venue until Tuesday the 5th, which is literally the day of load-in. So for many of you, this is not going to work, right? And then I would just avoid it because if there's any delays from like your carrier getting it to Freeman at the show site, then, you know, there, there's a possibility you might not have your items if UPS is delayed and, you know, it's delayed 5 days and then it never gets to the event center. So I would definitely bear that in mind. The shipping labels are here if you guys need them. We'll send them again in the deck. We did send out the online exhibitor portal, so I just wanted to call this out. So the Freeman portal has a lot in it. I know it's like a big portal, so I just want to call out a few things you can use it for. So one, if you're ordering any additional furniture, this would be something to do with Freeman. They don't do swaps, so because we're past— since we're into August, there are no swaps. So what I mean by that is like If you want furniture in your booth, you're like, I don't really like the stools that it comes with, I want different ones. You would just add them to your order and you would have additional stools. So that's one thing you would do in there. You can do your shipment through here, right? So your shipping and material handling information, that's all in there, as well as the managed storage on site. Additional labor, you can do this in the portal. So again, if you have activations coming in, that need delivery, that have a big setup, Freeman's gonna need to be on that. So you're gonna wanna do that in this portal as well. Additional freestanding signage can also be ordered through this portal. Again, all these things, as I've just called out, need to fit in your booth. And they can also manage the return shipping. So I, we tell these to folks every year, like the booths are turnkey, but if you have any swag left over or any items that you've accumulated throughout the show that you wanna get back to your offices, then you would need to do return shipping via Freeman and their labor crew. So there's a few questions here on the portal. If you—

I just dropped it in for the Freeman thing. Maybe I can— let me put it in the chat so everyone has it. I just answered that one question, but there's— yes, there's a lot of questions right now.

Hang on. There's a lot of questions on the portal.

So the Freeman link. Yeah, the Freeman link is now in the chat and we'll also send out this deck later, but you have it there. Amelia, what was ones that I wanted to ask you? Okay, question from Kelly. If they're bringing merch that's fairly small, can fit in a collapsible rolling wagon, like they can walk in with their merch that they're basically carrying, that's okay?

That is not okay. And I will say that is not a me rule, that is a Union Health rule. So no wagons or hand carts are allowed. You have to do that via Freeman. So when I say hand carry, it literally has to fit in your hands, i.e., in your backpack, carrying a box, like one, one box. Yes, one box in your hands. Anything other than that, not allowed. You'd have to do it via Freeman. And I'm sorry to be a stickler. This is just a Union Health rule. These are their rules that we do have to abide by as, you know, FASTR and all of our sponsors. So it's a great question, but unfortunately that's not allowed. You will need to do that via Freeman. If you have more than one box, please do it via Freeman. If you have more than, like, you know, again, things that will fit in your backpack, do it via Freeman. I have never found it be lucrative for a sponsor to try and avoid these Freeman costs. They're not that much for a few boxes. Let me tell you, it's not that much for a few boxes. They can get you your boxes delivered to your booth so you don't have to worry about it. It's just a couple, maybe a couple hundred bucks if you have a few boxes. And it keeps everyone happy. So please do that. I don't want to have to, you know, graylist sponsors who are trying to break the rules and just like, I've had people try and bring dollies in themselves before. It's just a huge flag to everyone just because, again, keep in mind, I know it seems small to a sponsor to be like, why can't I just bringing a wagon in. This is a massive 40-acre property, you know, during load-in and even on show days, like, we have people moving everywhere between labor crews, etc. It is a liability thing, we've really— and a union thing. We've really got to keep everyone safe. And so if you cannot physically carry it in your hands or put it in a backpack, then it does need to go through Freeman.

Okay. Bag rules for the event, bringing Bringing in backpacks, laptops, no issue, right?

Okay. That's a great question, actually, jumping off of what I just said.

Good.

There are no bag rules for the event, right? So you can bring laptop, backpacks, et cetera. I do wanna call out on, we do have a coat check, right? It's not storage, it's a coat check. So they're not gonna store like, you know, 20 boxes for you. Again, that's gotta go through Freeman. But there is a coat check. So like if you've got, you know, a backpack and a purse or a backpack and a laptop briefcase, then you can store one of your bags at coat check on site. So great question there. I know there's a few other questions on the kit here. If you request an extra cabinet, can you have it branded? Lisa, I'd love to answer you in real time. You'd have to discuss this out with Freeman. I don't know when you would have requested this extra cabinet, so I would definitely ask via the portal, right? Yeah. And yeah, and, and via the portal, I think you might be looped in with our Freeman team directly already, etc. There's a question from Pam is, there doesn't seem to be carpet changes, I think, as last year. Is there guidance to order additional padding? So if you go on the portal, you'll notice that there is a space to order additional carpet padding, and that's because, because we're doing wall-to-wall carpet this year. Again, we were outside in previous years. Since it's wall-to-wall, there's no chances to swap it out, but there is a space in the portal to order padding. I believe I saw that yesterday. Other things were, can we add things like the welcome cabinet to booths that don't come with them? So in the Super Gold, you— we'll get to the booths in a second, but when we show it, there is a cabinet in there, and maybe it's harder to tell, but in what they call like the waterfall desk, that has a cabinet in it. So it actually does have a cabinet already. Cool. Last question here on shipping is if I'm shipping via Freeman, there's a tighter turnaround. Okay, sorry, let me just summarize for the group. Is there flexibility on the receiving dates from Freeman? Unfortunately not, because I don't know, I think we've explained this maybe in a past webinar. Our load-in for SAS Re:ANUAL, so like the actual like setup of SAS Re:ANUAL, actually starts in 3 weeks, which I know sounds crazy because the event doesn't start for another for, you know, 5 weeks. It literally takes 2 weeks to load in the show before any of you show up on site. So that's why there's not flexibility on those receiving dates. Like, it's either got to go to the advanced warehouse or it's got to go straight to show site. That is because Freeman will have already been at the venue with us for a couple weeks. So unfortunately not, you know, that might be something where if you can push on your swag vendor, that's probably the better thing to do there if you can. I, I get that that's hard, but sometimes if you call them and ask if you can pay a rush fee, they can magically work it out, um, for shipping. Okay, there's some other good questions here, but I think I'm gonna get to them in our future slides. So keep your questions coming. I know we're covering some new information we haven't covered in previous, um, webinars. So let me just touch on the booth real quick because I know there's been some related questions, right? So Again, what do we mean by everything has to fit within the bounds of your booth? So for our— we're gonna start with our Golds. For our Golds, this is a 10x10 space, but as you've probably seen from everyone submitting your booth graphics, your back wall and your counter is not 10x10, right? So there's about a foot on either end, as you can kind of see it in the render on either side of your back wall. You know, you do have a neighbor and you do have somebody behind you, but you do have, you know, within the bounds of your 10x10, Your back wall does not fill at all, and neither does your welcome cabinet here. And so what folks have done is like you can see on here, you know, it does come with stools. They're kind of tucked behind this cabinet, but there's 2 stools that it comes with here. It comes with this monitor and it comes with a power drop by default in this cabinet. This is all in the Slick. So if you guys were designing your booth, which I know most of you submitted already, this is called out in there. I know maybe it's hard to read or you blew by it because you were focused on getting the graphic in. But this is all detailed in there. So if you're unsure of anything, just go back to those links. Or again, we've got them in the deck that we linked in the chat, and that's all in there for you. So I will say again, anything, anything you would order from Freeman would be additional, right? So, you know, there's only 2 stools in here. If you've got 4 people, you could add, you know, you easily have space for 2 more stools and a highboy. Like, you could easily add that to a Gold booth and still have plenty of space, you know, to accommodate your team. I've seen people add things like, you know, a monitor onto this counter if they wanted like double the monitors in a Gold, because then you can maximize the space. So again, it's just, it just has to fit within the bounds of your booth. You do have a little bit of wiggle room in a Gold. For Super Gold, you know, there are already, there is already a communal powered table. So this one is powered, and then there's power in here. And so this already comes with, you know, whatever, 4 or 5 stools, that's a fair amount already. And to the point that somebody was asking earlier, this is a front— I know it's hard to tell in this waterfall, as we call it. This is a cabinet. So this is your cabinet. It does lock. So that's why, you know, I think I've seen some people ask to swap it and I'm like, technically it's already a welcome cabinet. I will say too, on this new waterfall style that we're doing for this year, it is actually structurally important for the booth weight. To have this waterfall because it's kind of a counterweight for the front. Um, and so that's why it's important for that. So just bear in mind that that is a cabinet. Um, on the Platinums, again, this is a bigger bit of a lounge footprint, so that's why it's got a bigger monitor here in addition to the, um, monitor that's in front of the waterfall. And again, same thing, it's already got, you know, a number of stools and chairs and power, which is all detailed in the slicks. And it's also got this front cabinet there as well. I know it seems a little hidden. I might just write on your cabinet next time for efficiency's sake. Platinum Plus, again, these are a little bit bigger. These have the added bonus of having a demo kiosk. I know we've got a few of these Platinum Plus sponsors that have, I think, have been set with their booths back. So go to our Diamonds, which is our last one. This is is, you know, the tallest booth that we have. Again, I'll just call out a few things. This does have, you know, a number of stools already baked into it. It has a lot of demo kiosks, so there's a lot of room to do demos in Diamond. I see a good question in the chat is how to order electrical. So great, I'm on that slide now. So a few things to keep in mind, I think most of you have now submitted your booth graphics. On the monitors, because I know we get this question a lot, we There is a monitor, you know, following what I just showed. So like, you know, the gold, there's one monitor. Once you get to platinum, there's like two. And when you get to diamond, there's a bunch of monitors. The monitors will be set up and mounted for you. You do need to bring your own device and cable to connect to the monitor, right? So there'll be an HDMI cable, but if you've got a MacBook, right, like you need a dongle unless you have one of the like, you know, souped up newer MacBooks that can take an HDMI. but you need a dongle, right? Or if you've got a PC, you might need something else. I don't know. Anyways, you do have to bring your own device to hook up to it. So I do recommend bringing an extra device. I don't know what you've seen, David, but I've seen it work better when people bring an extra device just to like basically hook up and leave hooked up to the various monitors just so that you're not like, oh, let me unplug every time I've got to do a demo, etc.

Yes, you could, right? It has the HDMI cord. You just need to like have something that can connect into it, right? If you want to connect a laptop, So sometimes you need that dongle. There is a USB port on the TVs. I just confirmed that. So you can connect directly in there. I like to have options, right? Because for me, things never— I just have trouble with devices and getting them connected. You know, I need my 13-year-old kid to do it for me. So anyway, I would have some options on that and bring extra, you know, make sure you bring that dongle or whatnot. But yeah.

I agree. I would say too, I've seen people do— I see people do like Fire TV sticks. I see people do Apple TVs.

The Apple TV was pretty cool actually, because then you don't have to leave the laptop there, you know, if you want your laptop. And the best thing is when people like create a loop, right? Some type of video or slideshow that they go have going on the monitor, um, to get some key messages across. So yeah, yeah, those, those, the Roku, those things have been really—

yeah, Roku, Fire Stick, you know, I think Fire Sticks are like $20 on Amazon. Same, same idea, right? Maybe they're on an Apple TV, but it's like $20 on Amazon. You can get one on Prime today, and that will help you control, you know, what's on the monitor from your laptop without having to leave a device there if you don't want to do that. So we've seen people do that a lot more now. Okay, cool. Okay, can you— Still hear me? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Up to date on questions. I think we're good.

Okay, cool. Okay, so let's go into power and a few other things then in the booth. Okay, we've got a question in chat, and I know it's probably top of mind for you guys since you've submitted graphics is, you know, where do you order— hello, computer— where do you order additional power? So the details are linked here. Again, the link to the slide deck is in the chat. So if you need it, it's already in the chat for you all. You can do that there. So it's not via— I know it's confusing to keep track of everyone. Freeman is for anything for your booth and like furniture and shipping related and labor. Edlin is the power people. So if you need extra power, again, I would reference your booth slick first of like what's all included and then order extra power. I know a lot of people like to order extra power strips. So that they have everything they need to, you know, plug in their various devices. That's linked for you there. And then if you do need additional AV needs, again, it's got to fit within your booth, but you can order that from ETS. So two deadlines there, you know, order power before August 16th and order AV before the 11th. Again, that's because our load-in for SAFSTER annual starts the 24th. So that's why some of these deadlines may seem soon. It's because we'll already be transforming the property. Furniture we've already chatted about, but you know, the kit is linked there. I know David dropped it into the chat. I will call this deadline out. Any furniture adds do need to be ordered by August 8th, so I think that's Monday or so, or Tuesday. Let me look at my calendar. Tuesday. That's Tuesday. So make sure you do that before then. Last thing I'll say is Wi-Fi. We've gotten a few questions from sponsors lately on Wi-Fi. What's it like? If you've been to the venue, you know, we have, you know, campus-wide venue throughout the entire campus. We did upgrade it between last year and this year, so it's a beefier Wi-Fi. However, and I say this however, you know, there is venue-wide Wi-Fi. There is a separate network for sponsors. There are a lot of sponsors, right, like that are still gonna be just on the dedicated sponsor network. If you're running really big demos, if you have really large videos you wanna run, if you're gonna use, you know, an Apple TV, etc., Great idea to get a hardline. I can't recommend this enough. If I could, I would make everybody get a hardline. It's honestly just, it gives you peace of mind, right? Like you're hardlined in, no muss, no stress, no nothing. Like definitely recommend getting a hardline. You can order these from, it's through the event center, so just let Sponsor Success know if you want a hardline and there's, you know, It's one kind of set speed for hardlines. It's 25 megabytes, which is more than enough. Like even when we do live streaming from our stages, it only needs 10, right? So you have—

So Amelia, just to confirm, for if you want the hardline, email Sponsor Success. There's no link for that one, right?

Correct. Yeah, there's no link, just email Sponsor Success. Good call out there. And do that as soon as possible, right? Because we are trying to see how many people do have hardlines, etc. Yeah, again, really great idea to order a hard line. Okay, let me just hit on a few other things that I think are maybe newer to this guide and then we'll do final questions just to wrap. So thanks for all hanging in there for this. On lead scanning, I think a lot of you have been starting to ask about this now that booth graphics have been turned in. How does this work with the lay of the land, et cetera? We will do a formal deep dive with this in this again. I know I've said that, but probably in another 1 or 2 weeks, only because there's literally nothing to do right now. There's no attendees at the venue. There's nothing to scan. There's nothing to do. It's really easy setup. It really takes, you know, 5, 10 minutes to set yourselves up on the lead scanning. But if you've been to a SASTRA event before, this is gonna be the same instructions that you would have seen at a previous event. So that either like last annual or Europa that was just in June. It is through the GTR Leads app. So how that works is like you don't get a physical device to do lead scanning. It is an app that you can use on your phone. You can also do it on an iPad, quite frankly, or a tablet if it's Google or Apple, you know, Play platforms. So bear that in mind. Basically what we're going to be doing starting next week is asking you for your main point of contact. So basically what you're going to do is like, we're going to send you an email saying, hey, Amelia, who is your main point of contact for the lead scanning? You're going to want this person to be somebody who is on site, you know, whoever is managing your booth, your marketing team, whoever that is on that team, or your events team. That should be the person that you use as your POC. They do need to be somebody who is going to the event. Can't stress that enough. So when we ask you, make sure it's somebody who's going to the event. Make sure it's somebody who, you know, can do enough of the tech savvy stuff of, you know, assigning licenses, etc. So basically what we say is like, hey, you know, we need your POC. I'd say, okay, Amelia is going to be our POC for our lead scanning license. And basically what I would do is like I would get set up in the platform with Zapier, I would get a unique code to log into the app, and I would basically just set a password. So I would say, you know, this is not really my password. I would say, you know, whatever my login is. And then my unique code is after, um, and so I would use that to log in. And since it's a license, you can have up to 10 devices for each license, meaning like I would share my login then with David and then David would be able to on his phone also scan leads. I know there's been a question from like previous sponsors of like, how can we tell who scanned what person? There is a way when you're in the platform to set your device name. So basically what I would do is like I would share my credentials with David. David would log into the app. Once he's in, he would nickname his device in the app so that it says David's Phone or whatever it is, um, so that we know, you know, David scanned that person. And I would set my device nickname to Amelia's Phone, um, so that we know it was me who scanned them. Again, we will walk you through all that once it is closer. Right now, um, the only thing to look out for is that starting next week, we'll begin to ask you who that main POC should be, um, and then So once we get everyone's, you know, we'll send out the instructions for how to get your setup on your devices, etc., and we'll walk you guys through it. So one good thing to know is, you know, based on the— what is delivered to sponsors, right? And is it in real time? That's a question we get a lot. So yes, it is. Again, that's why you want the main POC to be on site, because they're the person that can control the download of all your master leads. So, you know, we're both scanning for SAFTR and I'm the main POC. Then I could do a real-time export of those leads, but not each person can do it. So again, make sure your POC is someone who's going to be on the computer and on and able to do an export of those leads in real time as often as you want, right? The data that is sent back to you by default, like as you scan a badge, is the first name, last name, email, job title, and company. So that's what you'll get in the in like your kind of like lead report in real time. And again, pay attention to, you know, once you're in the app, you know, it does sync or whatever. So it takes, you know, I don't know, 30 seconds to sync. If you're scanning a lot of people, you can sync it after every few people. But it's, it's again quite easy to use 'cause it's on your own personal devices. Maybe some last things. Let me see what else is on here. I'll just talk about Braindates briefly 'cause I know we chatted about this briefly last week. I think there were a few questions on the chat today on like, how do we do networking? How do we connect with folks? That would be via Braindates. This is our one-on-one and group mentorship sessions, and it's all based on like learning and sharing something new, right? So it's all mindshare. It's all based on that. So as we said last week, this is now currently open, so you can log into Braindates. You can just click this link here. You do have to be ticketed though. So again, if you haven't registered yet, it's not going to let you in yet because you don't exist in the platform. I will say if you like scramble to register right after this webinar, or maybe as I'm talking, it does take a little bit to sync, especially because right now, you know, we do get a high volume of tickets per minute, like our Slack is going off. So it can take, you know, up to 30 minutes or an hour to sync from once you first register over to Braindate. So bear that in mind too. I get people who register and then like want to get in right away as a sponsor. It's going to take a little bit of time to sync up that you're, you know, in the system and registered as an attendee. So bear that in mind, right? Factor that time in if you want to start booking your Brain Dates. So Brain Dates are great. Highly recommend, you know, doing these. They're a great way. I will say, you know, you can either join an existing topic, so there's already some topics in there that I saw this morning, or you can create your own topic. When you do create your own topic, just know again, it should not be a commercial. It should be something, you know, based on what you want to share, your learnings, your expertise, what you're, what you're a subject matter expert in so that, you know, people are enticed to come and learn from you. Or you can join other groups. I've, you know, I've seen sponsors do both really well. So it doesn't mean you have to just talk about something. I will say, too, for those who are newer to Brain Dates, it does limit you to how many topics you can post so that if you know you've got the platform, basically doesn't let you sit there with a bunch of empty Brain Dates with nobody joining them, right? So again, the more like topic-based expertise it is, the higher chance it is that, you know, somebody else will join your Brain Date and that you'll have this meeting. So again, bear all that in mind when you're doing Brain Dates. Cool, we hit that. David, do you want to throw out some quick activation just in our last few minutes?

Yes, there's one question for you to take a look at when you get a chance about social graphics, and I'm just not sure if we do that. So yeah, okay, good, cool. I just wanted to— we only have a few minutes left and there's a couple of really cool ancillary— we call them ancillary opportunities. They're basically other branding opportunities to like get your name and get in front of the SaaStr audience at the event. And I just stuck this one in here. This is something brand new that we're doing this year. I think it's the coolest ancillary personally. We're bringing for the first time a giant zipline. To Saster. It's going to be near— was it the Saratoga entrance and our container park? And it's a zipline, which is pretty amazing. So I can't think of a better way to be memorable, to have your logo in real— or your brand in a really big showcase, put a tagline on it, kind of like this one you see here. I think it's awesome and something that everyone will be talking about for a long time. Imagine lots of selfies, lots of social buzz. So anyway, I think this is awesome. We just added it, which is probably the reason why no one's taken it yet. So if you're interested in this, let us know. I like that question. Wow, zipline. That's what I keep saying. So anyway, this one's awesome. It's still available. Let us know and it could be yours. What else we got here, Amelia? I think you're controlling this one.

I will say too, yeah, I think that the deadline for branding the zipline I know is quickly approaching. So if you like that one because it's really tall. Um, like a billboard.

Anyways, um, yeah, Brain Dates. There's still an opportunity to sponsor our Brain Date Lounge. Um, I really like this one because it really aligns your brand with thought leadership, right? I mean, I think we hosted over 1,000 Brain Dates at Saastr last year, if I think about what that is. Yeah, more. Okay, so if it's 1,000 at minimum and the average one has what, 2.5, 3 people? Yeah, well, even if it's 2, that's 2,000 people, and it's more. So That's a lot of people that are getting there, seeing your brand at Braid Dance, associating your brand with thought leadership. At the tables you meet at, you'd have branding. Picture a little QR code there, something to, you know, drive awareness and engagement. So it's a really great one. I'm a big fan.

Yep.

What's next? Speaker and VIP lounge. I do have one sponsor that has an agreement for this right now, but it is still available if you want it. What I love about about this is you get to really put your brand and connect with our speakers. Take a look at the agenda. I think, you know, this could be one of the best speaker lists I've ever seen. A+ all around. How many speakers are there? A couple hundred? 200? I don't know.

Uh, there's over 200. Yeah, but I will say like a lot of them are ringers, right? Like you got, you know, David Sacks, Michael Seibel from Y Combinator, some of the partners from Bessemer, you know, um, Jack from Lattice, like Miro, like the CRO of Miro. Like, there are some— I agree, I think it might be our best lineup, you know, in terms of like logos and company and familiarity. We brought back some fan favorites this year. Like, I think Nick Meta is coming back now for like Friday. It's like a cool closing. Um, just speaking of—

yeah, and they all spend time in the speaker room. They all go through here. And look what— yeah, yeah. And what Calendly did last year is they gave out like a really high-quality swag item, you know, they didn't have to buy, you know, thousands of these. It was a small order for just those speakers. And so it was really nice touchpoint. No better way to get in front of those speakers if that's who you want to meet.

There's a question here. Do sponsors have access to the lounges? So there are two lounges. I don't know if I can just put back to the campus map. Sure. The VIP lounge is the VC lounge. So actually, let me try and flip back to it if I can get out of my screen share. It's a good question. I know we didn't talk about the EBC today. We can talk about that next week, but let me just pull up the map here. So yeah, these are the rooms that David is chatting about, right? So the speaker green room is only open to speakers. You have to be a speaker. There's security checks, so not like there's a bouncer, but there's kind of a bouncer. So like, if you're not a speaker on the list, you can't get into the speaker green room. Trust us, it's better this way unless you're the sponsor. And then next to it is the VC lounge. So this is where it's open for VCs and founders to host meetings. Again, we have a fair amount of investors who come all 3 days of Shafter to, you know, make new investments. So these are the 2 rooms. David is speaking of. For sponsors, like if you're looking for a space to host a meeting, the coworking space is a great space that's already in one of the hangars. If you're a founder or CEO, you could use the Founder's Lounge. This is a new area that we added in one of the other hangars. Sasha Square Park has a lot of really great places to sit. Again, if you want to take a meeting outside, there's a lot of great places to sit out there. And then what we'll share more next week is there is an executive briefing center. This is going to be first come, first serve, and I know a lot of people have been asking about this. So this is a bookable meeting space, but it's— I think this is going to go fast, right? It's free and it's open to sponsors, but there's only so many slots in the CBC across the 3 days. So I'm not saying please— I'm not saying to bombard us now with like your request. Like, I might— we might ignore them. They do need to formally be in the page that we're going to launch next week to all of you. But I imagine that's going to go fast and we're probably going to have to limit folks to the amount of meetings that they can book out in the EBC. Just because I know everyone's looking for like a bookable meeting space. Again, it's a 40-acre property. You do not have to meet people in the EBC, honestly, too. Like it might feel the same as your booth because it's just a bookable meeting space, right? I've known people to take meetings outside. It's actually a lot nicer or in the cantina, right? That's a huge space. It's already got food. It's got snacks.

There's two cantinas. Yeah, there's two cantinas.

Yeah. You can take a meeting in the speakeasy. That's a cool place to go, you know, the Founders Lounge. Nice. If you have the access for it. In the container park, there's gonna be space. Again, recommend taking a meeting outside. Trust me, I think the prospects actually like it better too, 'cause then you're not, you know, always inside. I know it's gonna probably be a little bit warm those days, but again, massive 40-acre campus. So there's a lot of spaces to meet there. With that, I know we are sadly at the top of the hour, so we might have to end on those pieces of activations. But if you guys have any further questions, please again reach out to me, David, the Sponsor Success team. I know we've been working fast to answer your guys' questions as fast as we can. And with that, we will see you guys all again next week. I know this has been very informative and long sometimes, so thanks for, for coming back each week, and we'll see you all next Thursday.

Bye everyone.