LIVE SaaStr Insider Webinar: SaaStr Annual Sponsorships Deep Dive

shy of 2 months to SAS for Annual. So we'll go through a few things with you guys all today. First and foremost, I think, you know, David and I were just chatting about this image because I think for some of our newer sponsors versus some of our previous sponsors, it's sometimes hard to get a sense the event is actually indoor/outdoor. What do we mean by that? It is a large festival ground style property at the San Mateo County Event Center. If you look it up on Google Maps, there is a Google Earth like 3D tour. If you're a new sponsor, highly recommend doing that. It is great to like go through the grounds and you will see what we mean by like there's like giant parking lots that we tent out around the interior buildings that are on the grounds. So highly recommend doing that if you haven't done that yet as a new sponsor. We do have images like that or like this as well to help show, you know, indoor-outdoor vibe. We build a lot of things both outside and inside to spread out the traffic across, you know, the 40 acres of the event. It is September 6th, 7th, 8th. We'll talk about scheduling in a minute because I think we've seen more questions on this. But just do bear in mind, you know, we say this every week, but in case you missed it, it is a massive 40-acre campus. So, you know, in terms of like dress code, things to bring, places to stay, we'll talk about it today. It is a massive property. You're going to want to make sure, you know, your, your teams have comfortable shoes on to walk and also attire that is appropriate for both indoor and outdoor. Weather, I would say, can be super unpredictable in the fact that like we just did a site walk last week, and it was really cold when we got there, and then by 11 o'clock it was really warm and pleasant. So wearing layers, things like that. You, again, it is indoor-outdoor, so you can kind of temperature control yourself, but always good to keep in mind. Also good to know for like swag or things you're ordering, you know, attendees do love things that, that they can use inside or outside. And we'll chat about hotel options because I think last week Crown Plaza was showing up as maybe sold out. They did add some more rooms and updated the link. So just wanted to call that out for all of our sponsors. If you click this Crown Plaza link, there are rooms available. I literally just clicked it before this webinar. That is a good one to book. I know it's going really fast though now in the new block that they opened up for everyone. So yeah, if you want to stay at Crown Plaza, do that today. That is where the shuttle runs to. To and from. That is its only stop. So, because we basically sell the whole hotel and some of the surrounding hotels, that is the shuttle stop. So highly recommend it for sponsors. It's, you know, very handy to stay at because you can just grab the shuttle and the shuttle runs, you know, really long, all day hours to go back and forth. Makes it easy. It also has parking. So if you're doing something like a rental car, I think we've mentioned previously, like Uber kind of surges during the event. Good idea to also stay at Crown because they have dedicated parking if you're staying there. These other ones are also great. They're within, you know, 10 to 15 minute proximity to the San Mateo County Event Center. There's some great discounted rates here. Doesn't mean you have to stay at one of these 4 hotels. There are other nearby hotels that are not listed here. This is just where we have our courtesy blocks where they're more discounted. And as you know, more people wait, the more the surge pricing will kick in. Cool. Yeah, highly recommend you book your travel if you have not already, considering how close it is. So just if you haven't booked your travel yet, and general event agenda, we do have a full day for Swampert load-in. That is— yeah.

One second, just because there's a good question. So someone asked if there's shuttles at other hotels. To confirm, Crowne Plaza is the only one that has shuttles. There are two other hotels. It's not on the Cardi's block that are walking distance. It's Hilton Garden Inn. And then the other one is TownePlace. It's literally right next door. So you don't have to stay at Crowne Plaza. You can make the walk over. Or frankly, you can just take an Uber. There's a dedicated drop-off for Uber. So that's an option. There's plenty of parking. We do restrict it to sponsors and attendees. But you can also, if you want, drive there.

Yeah, you can drive there. Yeah, and to Poya's point too, sometimes oddly, if you Uber there, if you're not nearby, it is cheaper than Ubering to the actual event center because it's less of a surge price. So just a little hack there. You can Uber there and then get on the shuttle. It does take a little bit longer, right? Because then you're like getting on the shuttle. But if you're not in a rush to like grab content or be in your booth, then it is a good option to take. Someone else has asked how big is the block for Crowne Plaza? It's the, I mean, it's the whole hotel, but the whole hotel is like not insanely huge. It's like 300 rooms. So we did open up basically the rest of the hotel on our block. So yeah, if you act fast, like now or while we're talking, it's fine. We give you permission. You'll probably still get a room because they just opened up a boatload of them. Will our team get the link for the hotel after we— will our team only get the link for the hotel after we register them? No, we can drop this link into the I got it.

I'll put in the chat.

Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. Good question. Oh, there's more questions coming in. Hold on. Another question is— I'll just go back to the slide. Okay, we answered this one live. We're going to drop the chat— sorry, in the chat, we're going to put in the new link. This new link is not the previous link we opened up because we opened up a new block just to maximize the room. It is a brand new link, so make sure you click the new one we're dropping into the chat there. Is Uber and Lyft directly to the center also an option or not recommended? You can 100% do it. We have a dedicated Uber Lyft drop-off area at San Mateo County Event Center. It is how most people get there. We just wanted to talk you through all the options. We also just know from doing this 3 years at the same venue, Uber and Lyft do surge price. So like, if you want to— I know sometimes you can't get around that because you just gotta be where you gotta be. We can't get around it. There's just too many attendees going to catch an Uber and Lyft. Yeah, things you could do that we kind of mentioned last week, like if you get a car, like a rental car, you can park at the San Mateo County Event Center. So if you're on our attendee portal, you can request parking if you get a rental car. If you're staying at Crowne Plaza or one of the nearby hotels, they also have parking as well. And then you can park at the San Mateo County Event Center. So there's a huge parking lot on site. We do do parking passes just so that we know who's coming in per day in case it fills up. Then you'd have to go to like an overflow lot, which obviously is not great. So make sure you request that ASAP. But yeah, there is tons of parking and majority of attendees, I would say 80% of people take an Uber or Lyft. We're just warning you that it does surge price and we're sorry. There's just a lot of people who go to AANP. Okay, I'm gonna continue on the hours. So Tuesday we have a whole day for dedicated sponsor load-in. This goes from 8 AM to 5 PM. From 2 to 8. It is for, you know, these booths that you guys have, which we'll talk about today, are turnkey. So this is anything like, you know, getting your swag together, any shipments that you might have from, you know, Freeman to basically spruce your booth, get it all set up, test your booth monitors, you know, get a lay of the land, and also to pick up your badges. So this is really what Day Zero, as we call it, is for. It is from 2 to 8 PM. There is about 2 hours there for sponsors only to come pick up their badge. Highly recommend doing that if you can with travel. It is the day after Labor Day, so we're cognizant that people are maybe coming in later in the day, which is why we kind of extended it to be more in the evening this day. But you can come pick up your badge. Just a note we've mentioned as a reminder, everyone does need to individually on your team pick up their own badge because we do ID checks and temperature checks. So just a thing to note there. Cool. I'm gonna— I think you got the link, Poya. Okay. Okay, cool. Okay, let me go back to my next slide. Whoops, I lost my slideshow. Okay, that's Tuesday. Hopefully that is straightforward. Again, there's— you don't need to like come fabricate your research at all. Set up for you. It is really to like organize your swag, pick your badges. If you have an activation, you know, make sure everything is all set for you for when sponsors come the next day. So that's really the magic of it. Wednesday is the first day one of FASTR Annual. It does open at, you know, 8 o'clock for sponsors for your final load-in. So if you have people who need to come get their badge, but they could only get there really late Tuesday or Wednesday morning, that is totally fine. You've got like a whole 2 hours before the sponsor halls formally open in the mornings. I will say most attendees come around 9, 10 o'clock. Day 1, they actually do come a bit later because content starts later. So bear that in mind as well. And yet these, these hours, I know we are long in there all day and this is just day 1. So one thing we do recommend is like shifting your, your teammates during booth duty, during SAS Annual, etc. So you'll see it's a full day of like content Speaker's agenda, happy hour, and the big thing on day 1 is we will be doing the wine and food fest in the East and West hangars, which are the sponsor halls. So that'll be super cool to help drive traffic and also do a day 1 like kickoff with some, with a taste of Napa. Should be fun. It's brand new, and that was actually based on a lot of sponsor feedback we got from last year of doing something on-site versus like SaaS for Nights. We did like the full off-site thing. We're keeping it on site this time. Coming into Thursday, this is maybe my favorite day of Caster Annual because it's the day of the big party. This is a super fun day. I will say day 2 is usually our most crowded day. It's when we've got like the most peak attendees on site because everyone wants to go to the big party usually. So yeah, on this day you get early access from 8 to 9. Again, that's just spruce your booth, clean up any trash, whatever it might be, you know, switch out things, whatever you want to do. And then the sponsor hall officially is open from 9:00 to 6:00 this day. That is because it goes right up until the big party. So all the happy hours you guys will see daily, those are in the East and West hangars. Those are both of our sponsor halls. So happy hours are just in the sponsor halls at the close of each day. And then we usually do something after. So like day 1, we're doing Food and Wine Fest in the sponsor halls. Day 2, we're doing the big party out on the main like master stage so that we can enjoy the sunset with some music. And then coming into day 3, we do what we call like kind of like the happy hour and the wrap party. We're doing it with like beer, a beer garden this year to make it super fun. And so the last day on Friday does technically go from 9 to 6. One question we've addressed beforehand is like, does that mean I have to stay all the way? It does not. Like if you need to, if you're like at 3 o'clock, I'm feeling like I hit it, it is up to you. It is per sponsor on an individual basis of when you feel like you've hit it and you want to leave SAS Gray Annual. You would only need to coordinate any like shipments back to, you know, your home base with Freeman because they do need to do that. Other than that, there's nothing you can do. Like if you have no swag left, you can literally just walk away from your booth and that is it. You don't have to do anything else for loadout. Bring all your laptops and stuff, obviously. Good reminders there. I'm going to talk about the booth actually, and we'll come back to this just because we sent these we expect that on Monday, and I think this is where a lot of the questions were, so I want to give people time to ask any questions on the specific levels of these. So one question we've gotten a bit in the inbox and from our sponsors is like, how should we submit our graphics? What's the file type? What's the color scheme? I know that's super technical, but people have been asking, so I'm gonna go through it. An AI file, which is like an Adobe Illustrator file, is always preferred. If you can't do that, then like an EPS or InDesign file, it's kind of like a secondary most preferred. And then like the third most preferred is like a high-res PDF. That's like the last preferred. So if you can do an AI file, an Illustrator file, InDesign file, that's preferred. To confirm, your colors should all be in CMYK. If it is in RGB, they're going to ask you to convert it. So if you don't understand this, just tell your designer it needs to be in CMYK. And make sure you include 1.25 inches of bleed just on all your panels as a safeguard. That's usually our standard. It does call it out here, this 1.25, but just something I like to call out verbally, so people remember to put the bleeds in their artwork. A few people were asking if we have a template for this. We do not, since there's so many different levels, and people sometimes do different things with their boots, so there's not a straight template. But if you follow the, you know, the splits that are in the folders which we'll go through, it should be fairly easy to set up your InDesign file with those parameters. Um, we'll talk about submissions and where to submit it. There is a box folder that you'll be uploading to, which we've linked individually on each level, um, so that you know where to send it. Yeah, so Gold Booths for our 10x10s— this is what the Gold Booth looks like this year. If you are a returning sponsor, it looks the same as it did last year, so it should look familiar. Few things to note, that cabinet at the back does lock, it does have power, and then this front welcome counter, as we kind of call it, also has power too. Keep in mind anything you're bringing for a Gold Booth does need to fit within your 10x10 space because we do have neighbors and we can't have you blocking aisles because of all this fire marshal stuff. So yeah, anything you bring, that's for all booths, does need to fit within your booth. Space. When you're designing your panels, just to call it out, you're going to design your back panel as 3 different pieces. So I wanted to talk this through because sometimes people send us one file for the whole back wrapped, and that's not how it works. You are going to send 3 different files. You're going to send one for this A back wall, as we call it. So like, that's where you see the Staff or Annual logo behind the monitor and the cabinet. And then 2 side returns, as we call them. So B1 and B2, these are 2 separate files that you'll also send us. Don't send us just one giant A file with like B1 and B2 on it. That's not how we fabricate the booths. There are technically 3 separate panels, so keep that in mind for a Gold booth. Wanted to call that out. Also on this front counter, it says partner logo. You can do any graphic here. Just keep in mind the bleed. We do recommend putting a giant logo on it because we, unlike other maybe traditional conferences, um, Fast Forward's not huge on like putting booth numbers like, you know, in rows or aisles or whatever, like It's not going to say like, oh, I'm G100. Like, it's not in a ton of places. Like, we like people to go by company versus by booth number just because it feels a bit more intuitive. So yeah, we do highly recommend you put a giant logo so that people know who you are on this G1 front cabinet. Boya, anything to add or that I missed?

Yeah, a couple of things. For the partner logo, you can absolutely do a logo. This is my bias, subjective perspective, but some of you Your brand recognition is not like G2s or some of the bigger names where people know, right, who they are. So sometimes you could do a CTA, for example, if you sell to CS, you could say, hey, come talk to us about customer success, and you could have your logo and maybe a URL at the bottom. Like, those work. I love CTAs that are soft like that. Again, totally up to you, but that's another idea. And in terms of graphics, We'll get to it in a second. But for gold booths, it's due July 25th. It's a Tuesday. For anyone that's above a gold booth, just because there's a little more heavy lifting that needs to be done, it is due July 31st. Our very own Amelia asked for some mercy, so she was able to get a couple of extra days. So July 31st for people above.

I really did. Boy, I know. I was like lobbying.

The 25th for everybody else. And then some of you, if you need design help, um, Sasser doesn't do it, but we have some partners we can work with. So just let us know. Uh, we can connect you, we can help out with the, with the heavy lifting. Um, in case that helps. Um, and then a couple of questions I see on here. Um, preferred files, it's on there, but, um, AI is pretty the most common. Um, some of them could be PDF as well. Uh, but they're right there literally on the slides, which we'll send over right after this call.

Yeah, they are also, if you guys have, you know, the links that were included in Monday's email or somebody on your team shared them with you, we are foldering those unlike previous years. So the folder will have everything you need for a Gold Booth. It's got like the electrical form to order electrical, it's got the CADs, it's got the artwork guidelines, it has like the 2D, literally like CADs, it's got the 3D renders, like it's got everything you need in there for your booth. But yes, it is Illustrator file preferred, so that's an AI file. If you can't do that or somebody uses like Figma or something else, you can do an EPS, InDesign, or like kind of least preferred is like a high-res PDF if they're using some other design software. Most people do use Illustrator, so as long as they do an Illustrator file with all the links and fonts embedded, then it's much easier for our team. Also, if you're like, I'm not sure, like, I'm just going to get a file from my designer and send it to Freeman, both Freeman and our team do check all of these. So we will let you know if we're like, oh, this is missing links. Because literally, like, I could show you guys another day, like, if you open an AI file and it's missing the links, it will just error out on you. So it's pretty easy for us to tell you. There's a few other questions here on booth location, which booth selection does start next week, but it is rolling because it's by level and then by contract signature date. So that's that answer. There's a great question here actually on the color of the flooring. The color of the flooring, it's carpeted, it's what we call tuxedo carpet, so it's kind of like a gray-black mixture. It is standard, so there's not an option to change it this year because it is basically wall-to-wall carpet, so there's not an option to change it. However, if you want like a workaround for this, We do know people who have brought like their own kind of carpets, if you will, to like put on top of their flooring for one, extra padding, two, for like a different look and feel. You're more than welcome to do that, right? Obviously you don't wanna full, if you're doing a gold, you do not wanna full 10 by 10 space because of, you know, where all these counters and walls fit. Like you're gonna want just like a section. So we've known people who have honestly gone to like Target, IKEA, whatever, and like brought just like literally carpet that you can carry and throw down in your booth. That's a good hack if you want to change the floor, but it is standard. So good question there. I'm gonna get to the Super Gold because there is a couple questions about that. So Super Gold, this is what the Super Gold 10 by 15 looks like. It has what we affectionately call our waterfall setup. So, you know, your TV kind of waterfalls into your cabinet. This is a cabinet. I know it's a little hard to tell where it says Partner logo on the backside. It is a cabinet, and it does lock. So just keep that in mind. That is the cabinet. You do get this cool, like, table for use in your Super Gold where you can, like, you know, take demos, host meetings, or some— a lot of folks, you know, are using that to serve their activations that they're bringing in. So I'm a big fan of the Super Gold. I also love this front header, which we'll chat about. So if you are a Super Gold sponsor, things to bear in mind when you're designing, you're going to technically design 4 different files. So this front header, I know there's a question about it in the chat, is technically 2 pieces. So you're going to do like a left side and then a right side. Obviously they have some bleed, so you can make it look contiguous or you can do two different things on it. Again, much like the front counter, we kind of recommend either putting like your tagline, your company name, or your logo, or both, just so people know who you are. Good question there. And then the back wall. So this A panel, you're going to design the whole of the back wall. And then, yeah, same thing on the front of the waterfall. You have a chance to either put your logo or tagline. You do also get that front real estate, so you can kind of like mix and match what you decide to do on them. But for Super Gold, the important thing to note is you're going to design 4 different panels that you will submit to Freeman. As Poya mentioned, these are due July 31st, which is a Monday. Okay, I'm gonna have maybe Poya run through the Platinum for me. Yes. Yeah, go ahead.

No, sure. Platinum's next level up. The beauty of this is it's a little more welcoming. It has that lounge feel, right? Same thing, waterfall cabinet. You can put a partner logo, you can do whatever you want, and you have a ton of graphics in the background and you have 2 monitors. One question I've gotten from some Platinums is, can we remove one of the monitors? Absolutely. You just have to let us know. So if for whatever reason you want to move one of the monitors to make more room, yep, no problem. Just let us know so we can let our good friends at Freeman know.

Yeah, I will say one thing as well. On the Platinum, so you're going to design two panels. We try to make it easy. So the back wall include, right, you know, standard is including where the monitors are, which is called out on the specs. You would just design around them. It does call out where they are so that you can literally design around where the monitors the monitors go. The Platinum again has this waterfall structure. So the front is the cabinet, you do get some storage underneath it, which is cool because you can like tuck in your stool, tuck in some swag. And it does have a lounge. So the beauty of this huge— I know sometimes scale is hard. The beauty of this huge 55-inch monitor is like you can do a lot with it. It's like very impressive. It's got this nice lounge feel. I know a lot of our Platinum are doing activations. So it's just something to bear in mind. Like if you're doing an activation, does it block your monitor? Do you want to use it to like buy into whatever your activation is. We've seen people do it kind of all ways. So that is, you know, the beauty of having the Platinum booth. It's got a lot of lights. And then because you're in a 20 by 20, as you guys will see next week when we start booth selection, these are some of the, you know, best placements in the show. Not that there's a bad placement, but the Platinum's have really good placements just because of the footprint. That they have. These are also due July 31st. And then once again, we did link out to the full specs if you need to see them. It's got the full everything you would need. Platinum Plus, I think there's just a few of these. Platinum Plus looks, you know, pretty much the same as last year. These are cool, big, again, lounge that with that extra 5 feet of space, you do get this extra demo kiosk. So if you're currently in a Platinum and you're like, oh, I like that extra, bookie, let, you know, Boya Kevin David know if you wanna, you know, upgrade your booth. But yeah, I do like this extra demo kiosk with the whole lounge look and feel to the Platinum Pluses. You get a bit bigger of a, you know, welcome counter 'cause they're, you know, sometimes the extra 5 feet of space really does make a difference on the show floor. And so yes, sorry, Boya, were you gonna say something?

No, no, no. I'm just— there was one question about the Platinums, which is, if someone doesn't want the waterfall cabinet, can they change it to a welcome counter and a table instead?

I would say email Sponsor Success specifically. I— the waterfall cabinets are structural, so it is a thing to bear in mind. It's not that it can't be done. It's actually— it's not— we don't prefer to swap it out. Um, so like if you wanted to do a welcome cabinet in addition, like you do have room to fit another welcome cabinet. That's what I would recommend instead of taking out the waterfall. Because of how it is a waterfall, it is structurally important actually to the structure of all of our booths that have waterfall cabinets. Uh, because if you think about like how they're weighting it, like they are weighting some of the weight of the back wall against the waterfall cabinet and is bolted in. That's why we call it a waterfall. Um, so we don't prefer to remove it. If anything, we prefer to add furniture or like maybe move some of this lounge table to fit another cabinet or etc., storage, so that it's a little bit easier. Okay, Koi, I'm gonna have you walk through the diamonds since there's somebody at my door.

Yeah, no worries. For the diamond booths, we've walked through it with a couple of people. The nice part about the diamond booths, it's one of the only booths where it's open from every angle. So people can approach you from all 4 corners, which is kind of nice. This year it's a little different in that you get this awesome little branding up top where you can showcase as much or as little as you want. And then you get corners on each side if you want to showcase multiple products, multiple demos, multiple kiosks. So David, anything you want to add? You're on mute.

Yeah, I was talking the whole time. I was on mute. Just kidding. So no, I think you said it well. I think open on all four sides is the key and just note all the different panels. I think that's really important. Oftentimes someone forgets a panel and then they gotta go back and redo it. So just make sure to note that. But no.

Perfect.

And also the high wall is really something that's gonna be great this year for the Diamonds, just giving even more visibility and branding. And the recommendation is take advantage of every inch.

100%. Okay, I'm gonna share my screen now just so everybody has it. Okay, if you have any questions on booths and whatnot, add it in here. The thing I'll add is customer passes. David, you wanna give people some context on nominations, prospects, whatnot?

Yeah, I'm happy to. I mean, this is something that we actually did for the first time last year and it was very popular. So we're trying to streamline the process a little this year and backed by popular demand. So essentially, our, you, our sponsors have the opportunity to nominate up to 10 individuals to come to SaaStr as your guest. And it really is a great value add. You know, the average ticket to SaaStr is about $1,500. So this is a great way to show some love to your customers or your prospects. Et cetera, or partners. So there's a couple of guidelines. You know, we ask that it's no more than 2 people per company so that we have a diverse set of companies at the event. So that's important. If they want more than 2, they can always buy tickets. And you do have a 20% discount code that you can share with them. If anyone needs that, just let us know. We ask that you nominate those customers by August 1st. To help facilitate it, the absolute deadline is August 15th. So if you can please, you know, our preference is August 1st so we can get them ticketed and set up and in the flow of all the communications for the event. That's the preference. In order to set them up, um, I don't know if there's a link here to the sheet. Is there?

If you can put it—

yeah, if you email Sponsor Success, or you can even honestly email me, David, whoever your account manager is, we'll get you set up. We'll give you the guidelines. We'll loop in sponsor success as needed. The 2 other guidelines, just so everybody knows, remain consistent. Anyone that's an investor has to buy their own ticket. And then as long as they meet these guidelines, I know some of you have asked, like, nominee, we will ticket them as long as they meet these criteria, right? It's like, it's a value add for you. It's a value add for us. And please, please, please, I know for some of you this is outside of your control. Let's get your sales team involved sooner rather than later. I know they have a lot going on. But at most companies, usually the go-to-market teams, sales, CS are the ones that own the relationship. So yeah, this is a huge, huge value add. Last year, our first 10 to 15 customers that renewed, the common denominator was that they leveraged this and brought their customers and prospects. So let's do the same for you guys this year. So any questions on this piece? Okay, this is a separate question, which is, what's the deadline for registering your company or your team? The sooner the better, just because we're starting to email communication. So we wanna make sure they're looped in. But the absolute drop dead date, the proper date is probably around August 15th, mainly because that has an impact on our venue, our food, and everything on the, on the backend. That doesn't mean we don't let people do it after that. If for whatever reason Things change, but preferably sooner rather than later. But August 15th, that's for your internal team members. Okay. All right, let's— next question was the Expo kit. We're waiting on Freeman. As soon as the portal's live, you'll be one of the first to know. The goal was to do it within the next week. Or so, if not sooner. Am I correct on that, Amelia?

Yep, that's right. If there's something specifically you're looking for that would be within that kit, you can let us know. We probably have it, like your, you know, electrical, additional AV, whatever it might be. We have access to all that shipping labels that is in the booth folders. We threw that in there. So yeah, you guys would have it. We did try and pare down and simplify the kit this year. It wasn't like the 200 pages it was last year. So yeah, the biggest thing will be designing your booth. The kit, again, we're aiming for like Monday, if not tomorrow, so to get that out to everyone. I will say though, it really doesn't have a— doesn't have a ton that we haven't covered with you guys already on these webinars. Like it has the show hours, which I'm like, you guys already know. Things like shipping, you know, yeah, power, all the booth specs are like all there in one. But yeah, it's, it's a lot of it we've already shared out with you guys, knowing that it's not in the portal yet.

I think the main thing there is if you wanted to order extra stuff from Freeman, right? So if you wanted a different furniture setup or additional and something else, which I, I don't know if most— I would say most people don't do, um, but, um, there's always, you know, you're welcome to. Yeah, um, they have some additional costs and you'll see it in there, but that's the main reason for the expo kit from Freeman.

Yep. Cool. If there are any other questions, we were trying to consolidate mostly on bibliographics today. I'll maybe say one thing on the activation, so I will pull that up briefly. I'll let my screen share during the—

I can do it if you want.

Okay, I got it. Thank you. Okay, we'll talk activations, and then I think next week, um, we'll talk about the floor plan. We'll also maybe share some more best practices. I think people have been asking for that. Um, so we'll chat about that next week in terms of like swag, what to wear, what to do, kind of like the lay of the land. Um, we'll hit that for the majority of the content next week. We'll try not to do booth graphics again because we've kind of done it twice in a row, but I know there were some questions about it, so we wanted to make sure we could help answer any questions on that live. So I'll just say for activations, I will preface with, you know, activations are reserved for our top tier sponsors. They do typically sell out by the time we go through our top tier sponsors, so if there is something here you're looking to do and you're not, you know, a Super Gold or preferably like a Platinum and up, obviously chat to Koya, David, Kevin about that to see if we have room to upgrade you. I do know the Platinums are getting— there might be only one left at this point. They're getting a little low on inventory, but we can see what can be done. So for our top tier sponsors, And the way we do this is for, you know, activations do need space, so they just sadly don't really fit in the Gold booth. You know, it's a 10 by 10 by the time you have the booth and all of your staff in it. There's just really no space to do a really big activation like the ones that we have on here. And so that's why we do limit it more to our higher tiered sponsors. Keep in mind some of these too, like, are not strictly, you know, super Gold or Platinum. Things like Frozen Custard where it's literally like a like a soft serve kind of thing, like an ice cream kind of thing. This does need the space of like a Platinum, Platinum Plus, Diamond because it does, you know, need refrigeration. As you might imagine, they do bring this like, you know, topping station. So it does need a bit more space. So keep that in mind when you're looking through our activations deck. We'll put this in the chat if you guys haven't seen it yet and you're one of those levels looking to do an activation. The reason you'll see a lot of slides hidden or things labeled as taken, that is because other sponsors have expressed interest. In doing these activations and have either secured them or are talking to the vendor. And we try not to have the same vendor do two sponsors. We find it's a bit better so that they've got one sponsor, you don't feel like you're competing with the other sponsor, like having the same thing as you. And so that's why we limit it to like one activation per sponsor and like one activation vendor across the board throughout our different sponsors. So you'll see there were things like flip-flops and ice creams, There are ones that are still available that I would say are more like you could do at any size booth, like the Furthest Western one. It's kind of bigger. The artsy, like Cotton Candy, again, this can be a bit smaller just depending on how you do it. But the, you know, there are other things like the— let me keep going down the list. It's a big list. Like Macarons, you know, that's pretty small. They bring them to you. They can brand them. That's pretty easy to do like in a smaller footprint. There are things like churros still available that is kind of a bigger footprint but can still be done if you're looking to have like a literal churro cart, which I think people love. And then other ones that are still available, I think that one got taken. We are trying to update this as people tell us. Yeah, there's a few others on here that are like claw machines, games, etc. So the last thing I'll say on activations is like the list is not fully inclusive of, you know, whatever you might need to do an activation. If you have your own activation, we've had other sponsors say like, oh, I found a local vendor that I wanna bring in, or I found XYZ machine, or I have a video game, or I have a thing that I'm gonna bring into SASTRA Annual. Can I bring it? Just let us know, right? We're gonna do everything humanly possible to see if we can make it fit. If it fits in your booth, if it needs any, you know, electrical power. If it is a food-related item, they do have to be licensed in San Mateo, so just keep that in mind. So that's the only thing we'll ask your vendor for. They'll probably have that already, but you can bring in your own vendor. It doesn't necessarily need to be off that list, and I know that list is getting a little shorter since everyone has picked kind of a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, I'll add a couple of things. If you're doing food, If they have a health permit, they can even apply for like a daily permit. It's fairly easy in San Mateo. They do need a certificate of insurance. So those are the two main things they ask for. If you're doing something a little more unique that's non-food related, we just need to know if it fits in your booth and if you need electricity so we can loop it in. And please, please, please don't wait till like the week of the event. We need to know now so we can you know, get things going just 'cause it takes time, right? And we have 100+ sponsors. The one question someone asked on here, which is a really good question, is how much swag giveaways do you recommend? It, look, it's a subjective answer because it somewhat depends on your strategy. I would say on average last year or the last couple of years, about 100 per day is a very safe number. If you're, if you're trying to play more of the, what we call quality game where You identify the person's the right fit, so on and so forth. So about 300 total. But if you're playing one of those games where you wanna hand it out as many people as you want, get the name out, frankly, you can go all the way up to 1,000, if not more. But again, totally up to you in terms of which approach. Both work. It just is a little more dependent on what you guys like to do. And then the other question we had, which is around lead. Um, app scanners. Um, so we use an app called GTR Leads. It's through Bizibo. We've used it now for a couple years. Works really well. Um, the way it works, just so everybody, um, has some context, we have to order it once we have a full list of all sponsors. And technically we can actually sell sponsorships till August 11th. So give us about a week after that date because we need to collect everybody's main points of contacts. And as crazy as it sounds, some people sometimes switch jobs last minute. So usually about 10 days, a week before the event, you'll start getting info around the Lead App. But it's very, very intuitive. For as long as we've been doing this for the last 2 or 3 years, for the most part, most people have been very satisfied. And then in terms of— a really good question. Can sponsors serve alcoholic beverages in the booths? The answer to that is unlikely, and the reason is we have to—

the answer is no, sorry.

So there you go. We have to go through the venue. The good news is we serve it, and there's bars throughout the event venue. I know some events are a little different, but the county fair is very, very restrictive when it comes to alcohol. That's the one thing they're a little more restrictive around. So good question.

So Kara, it's the liquor license is solely with the San Mateo County Events Center. Like, SAFTR can't even bring in its own alcohol filters. High Noon, none of that stuff. It is exclusively their license. As you can imagine, this is a super big event. Um, there's a follow-up question here. Can you order it through catering? We don't allow sponsors to order booze for their booths. There's just already a lot of beverages at SASTR. It is a safety precaution as well, even beyond the licensing thing. You can imagine, you know, 10,000 to 12,000 people all at once. What's up? Running around Castor Annual, like 40 acres of property. We need to be the ones to manage this so that if there's, you know, anyone who's maybe abusing the amount of drinks that they're getting in 1 hour, we can monitor it, etc. So it does solely stay with us. I will say though, you— I think there's maybe 1 or 2 slots to sponsor one of the happy hours or the food and wine fest. So that might be something you want to do because we do try and put a bar wherever the sponsor is for that day. So that might be a good hack for you versus trying to order alcohol there. There's another comment here, sponsors have had issues in the past giving away alcohol as like giveaways. So yeah, again, alcohol strictly prohibited in this venue. So like, don't— I don't know if you guys watched Workshop Wednesday where Sam talked about his champagne campaign. I do love that. Please don't give away champagne at SASCOR. Like if we see it or the venue sees it, it's gonna get shut down. Ship them a bottle of champagne, ship them a bottle of wine, a case of beer, whatever it is. Please do not bring any alcohol to the property, not even for a giveaway. If it's like one-off bottles of wine, again, we're very strict on the licensing and also from a safety perspective.

Yeah, it's, it's more of a San Mateo thing. But with that said, you can always raffle it off and just ship it to people. It works totally.

Yes.

And frankly, people prefer that because if they're traveling, that way they don't have to, you know, do a carry-on or something.

I will say Outreach just did this at the Europe event. So what they did is they got a bottle of champagne through the venue and what they did is like they put it in a lockbox and they had people guess like, I forgot what they were guessing, but it was a lockbox. Yes, it was a lockbox. So they did that as like a one-off giveaway. It was behind a case, meaning no one was ever going to touch it or drink it. That we can help you do at Safter if that's something you want to do. It's like a lockbox or behind closed doors, briefcase wine giveaway. But yeah, don't bring other bottles of rogue alcohol. Pretty please.

Yeah, what else, team?

I know we've had a lot, so we'll just maybe give it another couple of minutes for any last questions. Thanks everyone for asking all our questions. We actually do like answering them in this format. I'm sure you'd like getting your answers also right away versus waiting for inbox, which we've been fairly good about answering within 24 hours. But you know, this is more instant. So if you have any other questions, let us know. Just final reminders and key takeaways. Obviously, we spent a lot of time last few weeks talking about booth graphics. That is what you should be focusing on at the moment as a sponsor is getting those graphics, you know, with your design team. If you do run into any questions along the way in that process, letting us know so we can help clarify. You know, hopefully us going through the panel today is super helpful. Or you can also, you know, we do record this, we'll send it to everyone. So if you've got a question or if you've got a designer you want to send the recording to, you'll be able to do that as well, which might make it easier. Book your travel, I would say, is our second top reminder. You know, if you haven't yet, please be sure to do that. I know all the hotels around the area get booked up really fast. Some of them are already sold out. So good to do that. Yeah. And then, as David was mentioning, if you do want to take advantage of those customer passes, that does have a hard deadline. So let us know the sooner the better, so we can help with those customer nominations. And yeah, I would say if there's no more questions, then next week, you know, we'll talk a lot about best practices, swag, giveaways, what kind of the dos and don'ts of SaaStr Annual as a whole. Love it, love it, love it.

Okay, I think that's it. Get excited, everybody. So it's gonna be a great, great annual. And as always, yeah, you for being a part of it, the best part in my opinion. And until next week, be safe, be well, and we'll catch you on next week's webinar.

Bye, everybody.