LIVE SaaStr Insider Webinar: SaaStr Annual Sponsorships Activations - GET EXCITED!

Another weekly webinar all around SASRA Annual, the flagship conference we're all excited for, the first week of September in San Mateo County, in San Mateo Event Center. We're going to cover a lot. Our two requests, if you have questions, you can either put in the chat or if you have a comment, but preferably, preferably if you can use the Q&A on the bottom, that would be awesome. One of us will jump in and pay attention to it. And then the chance you are listening to this from the YouTube and/or LinkedIn stream, we will try to answer your question. But next time, join us on the Zoom link so we can make sure we answer it properly. Okay, I'm going to share my screen. We're going to double-check that you can see it, you can hear it, and let's kick off. We're going to let our very own Amelia Barra kick us off in a second, but two quick questions or two reminders. Booth specs, booth specs, booth specs, and graphics. If you're a Gold sponsor, it's due July 25th. It's going to drive you crazy because we're going to remind you, but guess what? We want to make sure it's done in time and you don't get any rush fees. And for every other sponsor, please, please, please, by July 31st. So we're almost there. But please, let's run on them. And in the very rare chance you still need design help, your very own can hook you up. Just let me know. I did that for someone yesterday. So let us know if you do need design help. Okay. Emilia, let's kick it off with the floor plan. And let's give some context on everybody, how we're going about the floor plan and booth selection.

Yeah, will you click that link that's on there?

Boom.

Perfect. Amazing. Okay. Cool. Yes. Drop me in here. I love it. All right. So booth selection has officially started. If you haven't gotten an email yet, don't worry. There are a lot of sponsors, and we do booth selection in order of level and contract signature date, which does mean it is kind of hard for our sponsor success team to give you an ETA on when you might be able to choose your booth. I know folks are asking like, do you know when I'll be able to choose, etc.? We do recommend having more than one POC on your email so that when you do get chosen for booth selection and it's your turn, that somebody on your team is aware because it is kind of in order of, of level and date. And so it kind of just depends on how quickly everyone else chooses their booth. But so far it's been going pretty fast because I think everyone's been eager to know where they'll be in the sponsor hall. So I'm just going to give you guys a quick overview, lay of the land, and ask any questions about the sponsor hall. This year we are indoors in what we're calling Hangar East and Hangar West. So these are two of the hugest, giantest buildings on San Mateo County Event Center property. I think they're over like, whatever, 300,000 or 400,000 square feet altogether. Actually, maybe a bit more with the contiguous space, but they're huge. So we tried to make our map this year 3D so it could give you a sense of the scale. So for— let me start in Hangar West. And I'll just say this about Hangar East and West, like they are a contiguous space. We have a connector in the middle of them. They are really easy to get to. They're gonna be the hub of the event. It's where we've kind of like moved registration around a bit so people more come in this way. So you'll see there's 3 stages in here. There's Brain Dates in here. There's the main cantina in here. There's a lockup Founders Lounge, the speakeasy, which is not so hidden, sort of hidden. There is so much to drive traffic through each of these hangars. Not to mention each night we are doing happy hours. So the first day, you know, there's happy hour and then the Wine and Food Fest on Wednesday. Thursday there's happy hour and then there's the big party. And then Friday there's happy hour and then kind of like our wrap party. So every day there is a time in which we are only doing, you know, those happy hours in these two hangars and that all attendees will be pretty much in these two spaces. So Trust me when I say they're gonna be here in and out throughout the entire 3 days. This is the hub and the heart of SAAFTRA Annual this year. So slightly different from maybe prior years that you guys have been on this campus if you are a returning sponsor. So few things I'll cover off in Hangar West. You'll see at the very front there is the Cantina. So the Cantina, I, I've seen a few people ask like, where does this go? Go out to. So the Cantina is connected to Stage A, which is outside in a tent for those that are new here. So the Cantina, we love, we call it the Cantina. You could think of it like the Star Wars Cantina. That's where it was inspired by. This is basically the watering hall. No aliens are there, but, or blue milk. But yeah, this is our watering hole. This is our main attendee F&B. So you can imagine there's coffee here, there's lunches here, there's snacks here, there's bars here. Like, the Cantina is where it's at. Trust us when I say it was literally full at every single moment of every single day last annual. This is where people eat, this is where people hang out, this is where people take meetings. The Cantina is the hangout spot, the place to be. So you'll notice some of our Diamonds, our Unicorn, and some of our Super Golds ring the Cantina, if you will, because this is kind of the heart of the hangars is the Cantina. So And they, they've kind of gotten the placement there by Stage A and then by the biggest cantina there. Some of our Platinum Pluses you'll see are by Cantina Stage A. If you guys had a sponsorship last year or remember the Cantina Stage out there, this is literally the same size. So just to give you scale, like that stage was super huge. That all fits right there. So again, I know it's hard to see scale, but this is a giant stage that fits I think it's full on right now for like 400 or 500 people. So that is a big, you know, 500-person stage right there, drawing traffic, having all-day content, making sure people are walking back and forth. And so yeah, you'll see a lot of the Super Golds and Platinums are near the Cantina Stage A because we anticipate that being a highly trafficked area. Beyond that, you'll see what I call Super Gold land. And so why the Super Golds are there is because people are going to be walking up and down, back and forth between the connector, going from stages, going from sessions, going to what, if you scroll up a little, Poya, Stage B Legends. So Stage B is one of our bigger stages. It has over 1,000 people in it. Again, scale's really hard on maps, so I'll try and explain, like big 1,000-person stage. If you were at SAS for Annual last year, it's the same size as Stage B last year. So if you remember that giant tent that was out there, that giant tent actually just fits in that back corner. The hangars are huge. So yeah, Stage B Legends. In the hangar. It will be driving a lot of traffic. Obviously people are going to be going back and forth to stages and content all day long. We also have our coworking space back here, which is going to be driving traffic. This is basically like the Power Up land, if you will. I don't know why I'm saying everything is a land like Disney, but I am. So coworking space is Power Up land. People take meetings here, get their laptops, get their coffee. It's a place to work. You can also see the stage from it. So it's kind of nice if you want to like look listen to content, but you've also got to like respond to an email, um, or get some work done because a lot of people obviously still have emails to respond to during SAS Re:Invent. And then taking our connector over to Hangar East, these are where the goals are, but also this is where all the Brain Dates are. So all the Brain Dates, all the one-on-ones, the group Brain Dates, which are one-on-fours, our Super Brain Dates, these are all in that huge Brain Date networking lounge. It's about a of the hangar. Again, these, these are really big buildings. So you can imagine people are going to be doing networking all day long. This is going to be driving constant traffic to the hangar. People are going to be going to sessions, going to their Brain Dates. It's also connected to our new Founders' Lounge. So this is something new we're doing for this year. It's like a VIP area just for founders and CEOs to come hang out with, take meetings, meet each other, maybe make some hires. So again, that'll be driving traffic as well. For all the founders that are coming. Also a good place to scope out for founders if that's your ICP. And yeah, the gold booths are here in the middle and then at the back again so that people— the, the thought is people would be, you know, walking from their rain dates to the back to get to the Cantina Stage B, the Speakeasy, and the other cantinas. So these are really great. Again, high traffic areas. You really can't go wrong. There's just, you know, different placements. Different styles for different folks of where people pick. I think it always surprises us where people kind of pick their booths. It's a little bit unpredictable, but yes, it's anywhere you have a booth, you can't go wrong. Trust us when we say— I know Poya will talk about it later— you're going to want to make sure you have enough team members to kind of like cover off on different things and like rotate your people so that they can go to content, so that they can go to Brain Dates and take advantage really of this. And this is just a portion of the campus, right? So there is a whole other campus with like hangout areas and more stages. But this is the heart of it, and so this is where we're concentrating our focus on today, um, because this is where most of things will be.

Yeah, a couple of things to echo: there are no bad booths. We put a lot of emphasis to ensure you guys get a lot of traffic. I've had a couple of people ask, is this indoors, outdoors? So, um, the sponsor hall and the cantina and everything we had the last 2 years for health and safety reasons outside, that is moving indoors to make sure you're protected from the sun, uh, to have a contingency plan in case, like last year, there's a heat wave. Like, a lot of different benefits. However, there's still going to be stuff outside—Sasser Square Park, stages. There's going to be plenty of things for indoors, outdoors. Some of you have asked, does it make sense to do sunscreen, hats? Absolutely, because people are going to come in and out. What we've done is is we've ensured that there is a ton of entrance, a ton of flow of traffic to ensure you get the love, and by that I mean traffic. So hopefully we've nailed that, but to answer your question, it's indoors, outdoors, but the expo hall is gonna be inside of the hangar so people are protected from the weather and people can see your screen and so on and so forth.

Yeah, and there's a good question in the chat, like, should we man our booth during the happy hours and the Food and Wine Fest? Absolutely you should. These are some of the most, like this is when the most traffic is in the two hangars. So yeah, this is definitely when you're gonna wanna have staffing in your booth during those things. So that'll be during all three happy hours, all three days, during the Food and Wine Fest. And then the only exclusions to that would be the big party. The big party's outside, so you do not need to staff your booth. We just like to let people enjoy the music during the big party. Yep.

A couple of other questions. In terms of scanning content sessions, We don't, uh, we don't— sorry, uh, we do not allow for scanning. I know some of you want to bring your badges and whatnot if you have a speaking session. What you can do is at the end of it, your speaker could say, hey, let's continue the conversation at our booth. So I just want to hit that home. Um, the second thing is in terms of booth selection. So we've kicked off the process with some of our higher tier sponsors where we've asked for their booth preferences. The reason contractually we have to go to them first as they are higher-tier sponsors. So we're working our way through those folks, and the plan is to keep going through, um, those sponsorship tiers by signature date. So you will get your, uh, preferences. We will not skip you as long as your reply within the time. If for whatever reason we're not getting a response, we do follow up to ensure you get your picks or one of your preferences. But again, there are no bad booths. So what We're working through booth selection. So great question. Okay, I think I've hit that home.

Yeah, we'll keep answering in the Q&A, Clay, if you wanna keep going. Okay, perfect.

So that is back to the activations. So wanted to cover a couple things. This year we have some amazing, amazing activations still remaining. I'm gonna let our very good friend David talk about the first one, coworking space. David.

Here I am. Good, I was answering questions, but, uh, all right, this is an awesome one. Um, as you saw on the map a couple slides back, the coworking space is in the hangar, um, and it's a place where a lot of people go. I remember last year I had to take a couple calls, I was in the coworking space, um, and it was just a nice place to kind of like get away from it a little bit and do some work. I wasn't there a lot, but I saw people who were spending quite a bit of time coming in and out. So yeah, I mean, it's just a great way to put your brand in a highly trafficked area where folks go and kind of chill out a little bit. Yeah. What am I missing? Yeah.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] It's near one of our main entrances to the hangar, but you're also right in front of one of our busiest stages as well. So two, two benefits that make it busier for you. So yeah, if you're one of those companies where you're, where your value prop is around coworking, co-collaborating, this is a great, great opportunity for you to hit that home, right? If you're an Asana, a Monday, a ClickUp, this one's for you. So it's also cool.

It's like an always-on, all 3-day thing, right? So you do get a lot of exposure across the entirety of the event.

Yep. All right, next one: speaker and VIP lounge. Our very own Kevin.

Awesome. Yeah, I, uh, I like this one because for, for a couple of reasons, but, um, we will have a speaker VIP lounge. This is where all of our speakers have to come. They get checked in, they get set up, they prepare. Um, it's a really, really cool place for them just to kind of hang out and prepare prior to their speaking session. Um, Obviously, if you're looking to hit and get exposure to some of the biggest and brightest minds in SaaS and some of the best SaaS companies out there, this is definitely the one. What's really cool about this, and I think Calendly did an amazing job, of course there's tons of branding in the check-in tables, tons of signage throughout, but it also does give you an opportunity to have like a high-end giveaway. So they did really cool backpacks. I think they threw like water bottles, some content in there. Um, but having some type of giveaway, right, for the speakers to walk away with, it's a really good experience. Um, if you are a booth sponsor, it's also a great way to kind of drive some more traffic back to your booth. But, um, again, they did some cool like branded pillows. They just made it a really cool experience for all of our top speakers and VIPs. So, um, again, I think this is another one of those that, um, we're having lots of conversations about, but is definitely, uh, one of the fan favorites for sure. Yeah, I'll add just one comment.

Like, take a look at our speaker list. It is like the A-list, A++. This is one of the best speaker lists I've seen in, you know, I don't know, 5 or 6 Saastrs I've been a part of. So it's amazing. And if those are the types of people or companies you want to get in front of, there's probably no better way. Yeah, they all go through the Speaker Room.

So go ahead. No, no, David's 237 years old. So that means when he says the speaker list is the best, it is the best. But in all seriousness, if you want to get in front of execs, high quality, later stage, some of the best public SaaS companies, this is the one where you can get your brand and how you want them to recognize you. So talk to us if this is interesting. I'll go with the Cantina. This is the exclusive sponsorship. Look, your footprint is amazing. The last 2 years, this has been the freaking hub. It's the busiest intersection. You're surrounded by some of our largest sponsors. And the best part about this, guys, is all those sponsors are going to drive traffic because they're doing activations. They're doing things that are going to drive so much traffic for you. So if you want people to recognize your brand, to have eyeballs, it's almost like a billboard, but you get so much more than that. So you still have a chance to lock this in. The last two sponsors got a ton of promotion, so let's do the same for you. I see questions coming in, so if Kevin, David, if you guys can jump in on those, otherwise I will answer it live. Next one, Sasser Square Park. David, you want to go with this one? You love a good picnic. You're on mute.

I love it so much. It was a lot of fun last year. It was— you can see what GoTo did, right? They added a bunch of picnic games. Some of them we provided. They brought some other ones and it was a lot of fun. I think this year it's gonna be even better because of where it's located relative to the sponsor hall. It's like right adjacent to the sponsor hall. So people are gonna be spending even more time there and it's a great, really fun way to like activate and put your brand in a really fun setting.

And we can come up with taglines, okay? What I mean by that is let's say you're a compliance company Guess what? We can say, we audit, we comply, you party in the picnic. You know, like we can have fun with it. Let's— we'll come up with taglines for you and we'll go above and beyond to make sure you get associated with fun. And who doesn't like fun? So, um, great to hit that. Our very own Kevin, you want to hit the Brain Dates?

Yeah, so, so Brain Dates is, I would say, such a foundational part of the events. And so, um, the Brain Dates app, it's the opportunity to set up one-to-one small group session meetings Great way to just connect with your peers, mentorship. Again, this, I think every year it gets better and better, and we see more and more attendees, um, participating. So this is a part I think that, um, again, in terms of just interactions, huge presence, great exposure, um, you can sponsor the Brain Date Lounge. Of course, like through check-in, through signage throughout the entire thing, um, you will be, um, showcased as that sponsor. Again, really, really great exposure. And also, what's really cool about this is you would have the opportunity for your company leaders to be mentors of different Brain Dates. So you do get a really great opportunity just to showcase a bit, you know, call it a little bit of like mentorship, some thought leadership. But again, this is one of those areas that is always constantly crowded, bumping. And again, I think if you want to be, you know, sponsors that really want to kind of have that like mentorship connection piece, like if that's really important to you, this is an absolutely an amazing one for sure.

Well said. Um, and then the big party. Look, the last 2 years the big party has been A+. 2 years ago we had the Cash Cash Group, last year we had Duke Dumont. Our very own Emilia got me an amazing gift signed by our very own Duke Dumont, so I will gift this if you end up sponsoring it to you. I'll add a cherry on top, you know, why not? But the Look, this is one of the best opportunities because it is huge. On when— usually happens on the second day of the event, which at least the last 2 years has historically been one of our busier ones. People love the performance and we go above and beyond for the sponsor. So let us do the same for you. And we have some cool performers lined up, which we will announce over the next couple of weeks. So let us take care of your VIP customers if you end up wanting to sponsor this, because We are going to do the work and it's turnkey, everybody. So by you offsetting our costs, we're going to go above and beyond for you. So last one, Airstreams. David, you want to take this one?

Yeah, the Airstreams are awesome. They are situated in strategic locations at the— in the venue. I think last year one had like, what was it, like a lemonade, really refreshing type of drink. I might have had a few of those and they were pretty good. And the sponsor had their branding there. They had like a, I think they had a QR code, which was really a smart way to kind of activate around that and a great way to kind of extend their presence away from the booth to something that everyone like kind of enjoyed. People were lining up for them and it was great. So it's a really nice way to add value to the community and people will love you for it.

And you can do a CTA to drive people back to your booth, right? You can do a scratch-off, hey, come by our booth. You can do different things to drive even more traffic. For your booth. So it's a nice add-on sponsorship. Next one, Pedicab. If you want the opportunity to help us transport folks from the parking lot, from different areas into the venue, do it in style. You make sure you get the promotion, and guess what? Allow people to be associated with your brand. It's, it's another great way to get promoted. Anything you want to add, Kevin?

No, I think, um, no, the only thing I'll add is that this is cool because you get, you get exposure all over the entire event, right? Like, because it is a really big space. I may have jumped on it once or twice myself, right? But like, you definitely kind of— it's, it's cool. I think it's a cool experience. But in terms of the exposure, um, you're, you're being seen throughout the entire campus. Yeah.

One thing I'll say too on all these activations and why we wanted to call them out today is because I know a lot of sponsors were asking us for any more activations. All the ones that we kind of have sourced are now taken. I know some people have brought in their own activations, and a lot of folks I think are space constrained. Like, these are huge activations you can do throughout the campus. You know, they're not limited to just your booth. And so we wanted to call these out as, you know, you kind of get that added campus branding that a lot of folks have been asking us for. And so that's why we wanted to call these out of like, if you want some extra space for branding, Giveaways, wraps, whatever it is, like these are all good ones that like will drive traffic back to your booth, but also don't take up any space in your booth. So if you're in a Gold or Super Gold and it's kind of harder to fit some things, these are really great add-ons because you kind of get the added benefit of getting these entire spaces exclusively for the 3 days and you don't have to worry about it fitting within your actual booth. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Okay. Last one, my favorite. The Dog Lounge. I have a special place for dog adoptions. If you see Hopper, my lovely dog, in the back. So I love the opportunity to play with dogs. It's a de-stressor. It's fun. I, I think it's a great way for you to get your brand out there, uh, to have some branding on some of these puppies. So if you want the opportunity to not only have a helpful cause but get your brand and your value prop associated with de-stressing people, this is one of the best value props you can do. It's been a hit for as long as I can remember, even going back to my first days at SaaS in 2017, 2018. Okay, customer passes. Amelia, I know you're typing. We want to give people some context.

I am typing. I'm trying to— it's all good. Okay, so this is one thing I think we've chatted about previously, but we wanted to make this process a bit easier. And I also just want to explain who can take advantage of this. I know you guys are busy designing your boots. But just this is one thing we wanted to call out because I do think it's super helpful for all of our sponsors who do this. We heard a lot of really great feedback from our sponsors who did this last year. We've gotten some early good feedback from some of you who are doing this with us this year. And so I wanted to talk about what we call this Bring Your Customer Success to Annual Program. We call it customer nominations. You might have heard us call it different things, but basically to make it easier, we put this landing page together with a submission form so it's easier for all of you. Work on it. Yeah, thanks for doing that. So this program we started last year since it was our 10-year anniversary, and so many of you were like, are you doing this again for our returning sponsors? So we are indeed doing this again. How this works, it's actually super, super easy. What you would do is you would come to this page, which is now in the webinar. We'll send this around. You would put in your company name. So if I'm going to say, you know, it's POYA, SaaStr. And then basically what POYA would do is you can nominate up to 10 people, and then I'll explain sometimes more, but just start with 10 in your mind of like nominate 10 people to come to SaaStr Annual. And who should you be nominating? These would be customers that you want to meet at SaaStr Annual. These would be prospects that you're in an active deal cycle with that you want to come meet at SaaStr Annual. There's a few parameters on like, you know, if they're already attending, we would open up that nomination. Or someone else out of your 10. So, you know, you're not strictly limited to 10. If you're like, oh, you know, I nominate these 5 customers and we're like, hey, you know, Hoya, your 5 customers, great news, they're already coming. Do you want to extend your nominations to 5 other people? So this is a really great process because one will, like, if you nominate them and they're already coming, we will let you know that so that you can book time with them on site, book a meeting. Obviously it's the year of ROI. I know somebody was asking about the theme. You're ROI and doing, you know, more with less. And so this is one of those ways. This is an added included benefit open to all sponsors. Cannot stress this enough that when we've seen people do this, you know, it increases their leads, renewals, meetings on site, all those things. And so this is so important to do. So just wanted to take a few minutes on this, like nominate your customers to do this. Some of you already have a template. Cool, Bianca, use that. Like, you can just use this if it's easier. Again, just ask us if you have any questions around this. Just email Sponsor Success. I'll jump in there to answer. But really, we want you guys to invite your customers and your prospects to come meet you at SAS Re:Annual because so many of our sponsors have told us when they're able to have those meetings on site and pre-book them, it does help them increase, you know, the ROI of their overall sponsorship in addition to getting all the other, like, lead scans and meeting other folks at SAS Re:Annual. It's also something that you can, you know, you can show this page to your CFO, CEO, whoever needs to see it of like, hey, we're getting this added bonus through Zaster as a benefit. Like, let's maybe put our teams together this week, put our nominations together of who we want to put. And again, if you want to go big and say like, you know, I'm going to nominate 20 people just in case 10 of them have tickets, you can absolutely do that. You know, there's just a few parameters of like, please don't invite your investors because one, they're probably already coming. But two, just to stay consistent. Just to stay consistent, you know, we do really want this to be your customers who are like manager-level decision makers and above, just so that, you know, we can have a high quality of your customers who are coming to SAP Re:Invent, you know, rather than like, you know, there are a lot of AEs and SDRs coming to the show already. So we do try and limit this a little bit, but, you know, folks have been really easy to work with who are doing this now or did this last year. So I wanted to call this out because we do want you guys to do this hopefully by Friday, August 4th. Again, I know it's concurrent with booth selection, but yeah, I do think this is a super great thing to take advantage of at SAS TR Annual. And again, we kind of made a page so you can like, you know, show your CEO, show your CFO, VP of Finance, whomever it is, or your CRO, hey, you know, as an ROI driver for SAS TR, we can do this together with them. And set it up with our sponsor success team. So yeah, wanted to call that out. I do think it's a highly effective program. Yep.

The only thing I'll add is some of the first few sponsors that literally renewed on site or right after the event, the commonality between all of them last year, they got their sales team involved, they got their CS team involved, they pushed this hard. Look, this is the year we want to make it a personal win for you. You got to do much more with probably a lot less. This is a great thing to take advantage of. So let's start now. Let's lean in and let's get some of your customers and prospects to SaaS. It's a win-win-win.

I'll just reiterate what Pollo just said. Involve your sales team. That's where we've seen success because, you know, also even sales leveraging just the gesture of the invite to invite someone to SaaS is a huge win and a touchpoint that they'll want. They'll know what to do with and want to jump on.

So Yeah, and then, um, some of you have asked our speakers. Speakers would, uh, if your sponsorship— sorry, if your sponsorship includes speaking, they have to register with your internal pass. So this would be separate. So your internal team, you should have registered them like yesterday. The sooner the better, I know, but your speakers count as part of that if they're part of the sponsorship. Great question. Yeah, uh, okay, we've hit this home. Now let's, um We covered the guidelines, but please, please, please register your team. We're going to start promoting and doing more email communication, so we want to make sure folks are a part of that. One of the things that have come up— side events. So we want to encourage this, we want to support you. We're not going to go and source vendors or anything, but I live in San Mateo, I've been to some of these places, so a lot of you have asked, hey, what are some good restaurants, what are some local areas for site events. So we just put this one page together just so you have access to it. It's not an endorsement, it's just of places that our sponsors have used in the past. If you click on every single one of them, you can work directly. The only thing we've added in here is just some context on like what the vibe is like, um, like at least just from our experience, some of our sponsors' experience. If you decide to do a side event, as long as it doesn't compete with our agenda, as long as you want us to promote it, we will promote it through our blog posts and different channels to get to ensure that our attendees at least know that you're doing it. So just keep that in mind as well. So, um, okay, shipping. Uh, you've already got info on how to ship stuff. The one thing I want to call out, we had two wonderful sponsors. Crystal at Storyblocks, I saw you earlier. Thank you, thank you for letting us know This isn't to scare anybody. UPS is currently planning on having a strike, um, if their union or whatever, if they don't, um, come to terms. Um, I would just check with whoever your vendors are if you're shipping. Just look out for that. Either use someone else or plan accordingly. Just calling that out because as of now they are planning to strike as of August 1st, last I had checked. So just friendly reminder. Um, and shipping instructions are in here. The one thing I do want to call out, um, the last 2 years it is extremely preferred to send stuff to the warehouse because when you send it to the venue there's stuff going on before and after and it's a giant venue. So highly, highly, highly recommend using Freeman's warehouse if you can. So use the first label where it's from August 4th to August 29th. Okay, now we're going to have some fun. We're going to go into like what— let's call it common practices, best practices, things that work, and some of the— if it's your first time, if you've been doing this a long time, we just want to help you out. One of the questions we've got recently is how to staff your booth. So I took 3 examples that I would say I would categorize of what sponsors have done in the past. Okay, so the first example on the far left Look, a lot of companies post-2020 are now remote, right? They're all over the place, they're distributed. So what they do is they leverage SaaStr as an offsite, as an ability to bring their team together. We've had so many wonderful sponsors talk about the benefits of that, how it helps with training. When you see a veteran, uh, follow, um, and help like a new hire or someone that's a little more junior, you can see how your support team pitches, uh, and how sales interacts. Those things help. So, uh, we literally have 2 sponsors this year bringing 25 people to SaaStr. So let us know if that's something you want to do, because, um, not only is it a great way for team building, but it makes it a little more of a team commodity. So, um, far left is one example. One of the things I want to call out, as you can see, it's a diverse set of people. The benefit there is if an investor comes by and wants to talk to your founders, they can do that. But there's a lot of other benefits down the line. The second example is one of the more common ones where there is a diverse set of people coming to SaaStr. The thing I wanted to call out is you see everything. You see a founder, you see the event manager that sets up, you see partners where they can connect with other partners and other sponsors that are gonna be at SaaStr. But the thing I wanted to call out is you also see how for usually for every role there is someone that's a little experienced as well as someone that's a little junior so they can learn from one another. And then a third example, if for whatever reason your team is lean, you can't bring as many people as the far left, guess what? I've had people that literally had 3 people last year outpace and outhustle some of our largest sponsors. So what I'm trying to highlight on the third point, it's okay if you're a lean team, you can still have a very successful event, you can have fun, And for whatever reason, if you need temporary booth staff people, the last 2 years we've leaned in and helped you find very, very, very talented as well as qualified people. Any questions on this? Kevin, Amelia, you want to add anything?

No, I think, uh, the only thing I'd lean into, I think when, when you have, um, whether it's your, your CEO or founder or just like think your, your leadership team, I think having leadership presence is a really, really great thing in SaaS. The other thing I would think about too is if, for instance, if you sell to marketers, right, and that's your ICP, bring your VP of marketing, bring your CMO. They love to have that peer-to-peer discussion. But that's the only thing I add. I think, I think you nailed it though, Poya.

Amazing. Cool. The thing I want to highlight is diversity, but we're here to help if you need some guidance. The second thing is which goes from the first learning is bring a diverse set of audiences to match the diverse attendees we usually get at SaaS. You'll get technical people, you'll get people that usually sales is very good at talking to. You'll get people that want to talk to an exec or a founder specifically. So please, please leverage and bring some of your execs because not only is it a win for them, but usually when they lean in, it's a win for everybody. The third one, I'll comment on a couple of things and then I'll let you guys add anything you want to add. But when it comes to dress code, this is one of the events where you should push the envelope around creativity. Have fun with it, stand out. Um, and the other two things I'll just comment on: San Mateo Event Center, um, comfort is huge. The days are long, usually you're going between grass and asphalt, so wear things that you're gonna be comfortable around. And I highly recommend living in San Mateo, um, bring layers just to be safe. Sometimes it gets really warm, but sometimes it gets really cool. The last 2 years, towards the end of the day, I'm like, oh my God, I'm shivering. So bring some of those light jackets just to be safe. And you can see some of the examples in the past from ClickUp to Expensify to our good friends at Giraffe. So, um, anything you guys want to add David or Kevin? I think you can go ahead. I'll add one more.

Yeah, I like this slide. I love this one.

You know, stand out. Hook is one of our Europa sponsors the last 2 years. Look, this is a team that's extremely mean, but they've done a great job at aligning on what it takes to stand out. So don't be afraid to wear neon colors or do things that are a little more funky. The other reason I wanted to show this example, I know all of you have a welcome counter. One of my favorite things to do on a welcome counter is a soft CTA that gets you associated with the type of people that you want to connect with. So for Hook, that's customer success leaders, that's revenue leaders. So if you have a certain ICP or persona, call those things out just to make it a little easier for you. Kevin, David, anything you want to add?

The only thing I'd add is I think, um, again, like we talk a lot about, it's like be memorable, stand out, right? Be really, really unique. And where you can also think about, right, we talk about even with the booth graphics, like think of a really cool theme that could align with your value prop. And so we've seen a lot of cool themes, and that goes with your booth graphics, with how you're actually dressed and presenting yourselves. But again, I think if, you know, this is definitely the event to lean into the fun and creativity. So, so go for it, go for it this year.

Yeah, and you nailed it. So I wanted to show some examples of the past on how you engage folks. On the left, our amazing friends at ProfitWell/Paddle. One of the things they've done is, uh, 2 years ago they had this lockbox where they were basically giving the opportunity for people to open this lockbox with the key. It was a freaking hit, absolute hit. So wanted to call that out. And on the, on the right-hand side, what you'll find is another opportunity from one of our sponsors that had to spin the wheel and they gave away some like real tier A type prizes. It's unique ways where frankly With very little requirement, you can engage people, make it memorable, do all the things that Kevin and David have outlined. What am I— what else am I missing, Kevin, David? Okay, I can come up with ideas all day. Uh, you may hate them, you may like them. So if for whatever reason you want to lean in and say, hey, this is kind of what we're thinking, double-check, double-verify, whatever you want to call it, we're here, we're here to help. But the sooner you let us know, the better. Okay, all right, uh, two other examples. Um, I'll give the one on the right. Our friends at Cladera did a VR game, uh, two years ago. It was fun, it was memorable. Uh, one of the stories Kevin shares is when someone beat the highest score, everyone started jumping up and yelling. Like, those things work really, really well. And on the left, um, our friends at Salesloft had a fun little, like, Instagram-type, uh, photo section. So Those things make it not only fun, but it becomes a unique way for you to engage with people. So Kevin, David, and Emilia, anything I miss? Okay. And then I wanted to highlight a couple of things we've done this year. Some of our wonderful sponsors that we're grateful for have been wonderful about sharing some of their lessons, some of the things that they've learned at SAS. How do you measure the success of events outside of closed ones, outside of the obvious things? How should we staff things? How should we align marketing and sales? So I wanted to include these 3 examples in no particular order. I just went by which dates we did it. So GuideCX, ChartMogul, and Bee. Go and listen to the YouTubes. Some of them have a blog post, but it's a great opportunity of like what it takes not only to be successful at SaaS, but at events in general. So wanted to include that for you guys. Um, and then my favorite is some key takeaways, reminders. We updated these. I'll run through them one by one. Uh, you should have hopefully by now booked your travel. Um, it's not late, but the sooner the better because things are starting to book up. The second thing is please, please, please start registering your team, your speakers, uh, your staff, just so they can start getting part of the email communication. Again, if you're a Gold sponsor, booth graphics are due Tuesday, July 25th. For all the other tiers—Super Gold, Super Gold Plus, Platinum, Platinum Plus, Diamond, Unicorn—it's due July 31st. And then outlines for speaking sessions. This is a reminder by our good friends on the speaker team. And then in terms of nominating your customers and prospects, please, please, please do it by August 1st. And then the Freeman warehouse starts on August 4th. So anything I've missed? Emilia, Kevin, David?

These are super good deadlines. Again, like, we'll keep answering questions as they come in. Yeah, I think a few folks were asking about travel and like hotel blocks, obviously, because we blasted out the hotel block last week, a lot of you booked. That. We are trying to see if we can free up any last rooms at Crowne Plaza, but I do know that one's full at the moment. So you'd have to use our deck to go to one of the other hotels. I will say again, not every hotel is on that rooming block list. If you just Google Maps, you know, San Mateo County Event Center, I know there's an Extended Stay, there's like a Hilton Garden Inn that are close to Crowne Plaza, meaning you could walk to it and get on the shuttle, and those places still have availability. So those are good ones to go to as well. I think Town Place is sold out at this point. So there's kind of like the two, those two are sold out. But you know, Extended Stay, that's right there. Hilton Garden Inn seemed to have availability when I looked last night. And those are walkable to Crown for the shuttle. There's also a huge, huge, huge Marriott kind of like across the freeway. So it's about, you know, 5, 10-minute Uber to San Mateo County Event Center. It is really big. They've got rooms there still left. 18-minute walk. Yeah. Yeah. And you, yeah, you could literally walk there. It's really not a bad walk. I've done it before. And it's— 18 minutes. Oracle, you said 18 minutes. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad. It's a little like, don't, you know, if you're going to, if you have swag to hand carry, then I would take an Uber from there. But yeah, you could definitely walk it.

Or call Kevin. He needs, he loves an early workout every morning.

But yeah, again, just wanted to stress like that list is not inclusive of all hotels in the area. So there are still plenty of hotels. That have availability kind of like in the proximity. And then I— and then, um, obviously in just greater San Mateo, um, there are more hotels that have availability as well. They are filling up fast though. I know like Crown and Downplace like kind of went instantly, so those were booked out. Um, but there are a few others that are again close to the venue that have availability for now. But I do know, you know, with attendance picking up right now because it's like peak registration season, um, it would be who of you all to book your rooms kind of close by if that's the vibe you want. Although we've known, you know, we've talked about it on previous webinars. We've known other sponsors who maybe stay between here or here, San Mateo and the city, and then get a rental car and then just request parking on site. I know that's kind of preferred for some folks too if you've got customer meetings you're going up for or other things you're doing. So that are things to bear in mind there as well. But yes, I will say Yep, booth selection is underway. Booth graphics are due Tuesday, so a lot of you will get a Monday reminder if we have not received your graphics already. I do know some have come in, so if you've sent yours, cool, we've gotten it. And you do get a confirmation email when you do submit your graphics, just so for those wondering. If, you know, no matter your level of sponsorship, the Freeman team, once they get your submission, will send you a confirmation that they've received it, and then our team reviews it as well as the Freeman team, and then they create a proof for you. So yeah, give, you know, once you submit, obviously if everyone submits all at once, give it like a day or two for them to send you a confirmation email. Right now they're kind of instant if you submit early, but I imagine everyone will be submitting kind of on Monday night.

Yeah. Lots of good info. We'll hang out for another minute or two just in case you have questions. Otherwise, get excited. It's getting fun. We're a couple of weeks away. I know at the midst of planning and putting things together, it's stressful or not as fun. Once we get on site, it'll be so much better. We'll have a glass of wine together on the first day, the big party on the second day, and some beer on the third day. But we'll hang on for a couple more minutes. Good summary. We're here for you. Um, and a lot of you ask, okay, a lot of you ask, where's the recording? I'm gonna put this in the chat, okay, on the far left, because it's live, it's streamed. If you want people to have a good laugh by making fun of me, you can put it in there and share it with your team. If you want people to love a smile like Kevin's, you can share and get people to look at that beautiful smile. But whatever it takes, um, otherwise I appreciate everybody for jumping on. Thanks for being one of the best parts of SaaStr. Um, and as they say, the best ships in the world are not friendships, it's not relationships, it's sponsorships. So thank you all so, so, so much. We appreciate you. Until next time, uh, be good, be safe, and we'll catch you on next week's webinar. Thanks everybody.