SaaStr Annual 2024: 60 days til SaaStr Annual!

good reminder session. Ask any questions too. So at the end, we have— we'll leave some time for Q&A. If you guys have questions, please do ask them. That's really been helping us lately add to the FAQs and keep it up to date. So that will be a good use of our time at the end as well. So cool, let's get into it. So let me see if my screen share will work. Oh, okay. Cool. So first things first, we're gonna go through a few reminders here. As always, again, please ask those questions. We're gonna go through the timeline. We're gonna go through the portal a bit. And then we're also gonna share some links and then we will, not to be meta, but we will drop this into the sponsor portal. And then we're gonna keep this one, I think, up to date. So that's kind of our goal is we're gonna add to this document to keep it a living and breathing doc. Hopefully it doesn't get too, too long because I I know there's already a lot in the portal. But yeah, happy to do that. So without further ado, I'm gonna leave this on not full screen so I can kind of swap back and forth between a few things that we wanna show you guys. So let's kick off with the timeline, 'cause I feel like this'll be maybe the most important 5 minutes. So if you have to drop after these 5 minutes, at least you know the timeline and deadlines. So if you haven't already, I think most of you have, please do confirm with myself, Trish, your main POC for the event. I know a lot of you have done that in response to Trish's emails this week. So thanks for doing that if you have already, or if you haven't, just email one of us. You can email events@saastrinc.com. Fun fact, that goes to both of us. So that's a good way to do it 'cause then we'll both see it. The other thing to do ASAP would be to, if again, if you haven't already, if you have, thank you, upload your sponsor logo and your company address to the sponsor portal. I'll show you where to do that in a second. And then yeah, for those of our sponsors who have speakers, you'll notice that this deadline has passed. So if you haven't done this yet, you are a little bit late. But for any of our sponsors with content that have speaking, your speakers and your session topics were already due to the speaker team. So if you haven't done that already, I know a couple folks have an extended deadline, but if you haven't done so already, please do send that right away. The— as the agenda is up and we're wanting to add you guys to the live agenda before we start promoting heavily to attendees. So be sure you do that so you can be included in that promotional wave. The next deadline you'll notice is next Wednesday. This is actually less of a deadline and more of a— more of an FYI. So next Wednesday, we will be releasing two things on Wednesday, July 17th. We will be releasing both the sponsor booth floor plan and the activation options into the sponsor portal. So I'll go over what that means in a little bit more detail. So as many of you may know, as, as, as existing and repeat sponsors, or if you're new here, how we do booth selection is by releasing our sponsor booth floor plan. And we do it in level of, um, we do it in order of level and also in order of contract signature date. So meaning, you know, we do the Diamonds first, Platinum Plus, Platinum, Super Gold, and then Gold. Um, some of these levels do end up picking concurrently. So for instance, you know, we kind of do the top sponsors first, and then we do the Super Golds and Golds. We start those at the same time. Um, we do them in waves, so it's in order of contract signature date. So, you know, if you, if you are one of our renewal sponsors that renewed right after annual last year, you're probably in the first wave. If you just signed with us, then you're probably going to have to be in a little bit of a queue, just because we do go in order of contract signature date. So what this means is next week when we release it, if you're one of those first wave 5-level sponsors, you'll get a dedicated email from us as well saying that it's your time to choose your booth. At that time, you'll go into our portal and choose your booth. It's fairly simple to do. You give us your top 3 options, and then we'll confirm to you which one you get. And that's how booth selection works. So it is, again, in order of level and contract signature date. So as much as we try and forecast, like, where you are in the queue and how long that will take. I will say sometimes even my best guess is wrong because sometimes people pick in 60 seconds. They're like, you know, I already knew where I was gonna put my booth and that's where I put it. And some people take like 2 days to pick. So we do try and give people about a 2-day maximum so that, you know, everybody else is not waiting on them for more than 48 hours. But just know, we can try and give you an estimate, both Trish and I, of like, okay, where you are in the queue and how long that might take. But, you know, we're not psychics, so we don't actually know. It will really be just our best guess. So, yeah, I cannot ask any spirits of, you know, when your actual booth selection date will be. So just bear that in mind, but always a good idea to log in on the 17th and just look at the floor plan, right? Maybe look at it with your team and start to brainstorm of where you might wanna be on the floor. There's kind of, we'll obviously go over this next Thursday 'cause we have a webinar on Thursday. We'll go over the floor plan and the activations. So you could also just skip this and say, nah, I'll just look at it on the webinar next week. But always good to start brainstorming about where you want to be. So that's how that works is like we will release that information on the 17th. And then if you're in the first wave, you'll start to pick. If not, you'll just have that information handy and then we'll let you know individually when it's your turn. Very similarly, it's how we're handling activations this year. So since we had so many folks do activations last year and we know a majority of folks want to do activations this year, we're just going to keep it democratic and do the same thing of by level and in order of contract signature date. So how this will work for activations this year is meaning same day on the 17th, we're gonna upload to the sponsor portal a deck of sponsor activations. You'll see that some of them will already be taken in the deck, and you're like, how can that be if they just released this day? And that will be because some of our higher tier sponsors get to choose before everybody else. Some of our sponsors did pay for a, what we call a campus-wide activation. And then some of you picked when you signed your renewal contract. So There were a few cases in which you could earmark your activation for this year. And then we have some folks that we, that have already told us they're bringing in their own activation. So if we didn't source it, that will also still be in the deck so that you know what other people are doing. But that's how you'll see a few things are already taken or already happening at SAS Re:Annual, even on the first day it's released. So that is the story with activations there. The next big thing will be, you know, next Friday, the name, phone, and like descriptors and all those URLs will be due into the sponsor portal. Portal 2. So you do have a deadline next week. Um, and then yeah, we've gotten this question a lot this week, so we added it into our timeline. You know, starting August 1st, we'll collect your Lead Scanner license information. I did add some information on this deck of how that will work when that releases. Again, there's nothing to do yet. So I know a lot of you guys are like eager beavers. We want all the information on how to scan. I'm like, you can't scan anyone yet. Um, but I, I did add some information here on how it will work so you can get familiar with it. You can certainly download the app now, not that you'll have access, but, um, you can play around with it now until we start to collect your lead license admin information. So this can work, but does not need to be the same person that you have in the sponsor portal. It can be, I always recommend doing it whoever's gonna be on site on your marketing team, uh, or your sales team that's gonna, you know, manage all those leads. So basically whoever's gonna manage the leads, make that person your admin. Um, so we'll start that in August. And then the big, big, big deadline that I hope you guys all know now, um, is the, is the deadline for all booth artwork. Is due no later than 12 noon Pacific time on Friday, August 16th. So if it is late, we've noted here what the late fees are that apply via Freeman. There is nothing myself nor Trish can do about these late fees. So this is a late fee with our general contractor. Even if you try and bribe us and send a Starbucks, like, I can't waive your late fee. There is nothing I could do about it. It's an automatic thing. But what Tricia and I can and will do is remind you guys if we see that you haven't uploaded yet to get you in before this deadline. So don't worry, you'll have plenty of reminders. You have one now, but just something to think about that, you know, like, oh, well, you know, I know Amelia and I'll just ask her for a waive of the late fee. It's not my late fee, so I can't waive it. So, so in that case, get it in on time and then After you do that on August 23rd, we will release all the lead scanner access information to the admins. And then again, a lot of you guys have been asking us, so we added it to the timeline of like, when's the deadline to register our booth staff and everyone who's coming on site? That is September 2nd. So that's about a week before the event. It's when our actual load-in starts. So we always, if you guys have been here a while, you know that we always cut off the registration once we start loading because we flip to an onsite system. But that's the rough timelines there. So hopefully again, if you, if you need to drop after 10 minutes, hopefully this gave you a lot of really great information already. And a lot of this is in the sponsor portal. So you guys have got an access to this. I'll flip to this real quick because it's got a lot of really great information. I know some folks are like, this has too much information already and we keep adding to it. So I'm sorry, but it is everything you do need to know. We are putting it in here. Trish and I literally update this like multiple times a day right now. So there is a lot in here. But just the, the big things to keep in mind, and I'll call it a couple things. So one, once you log into this homepage, you know, the location is on here for the San Mateo County Event Center, and then the show hours are here. So I, again, most of you have had the chance now to read this and then has asked us some like specific qualifying questions. That's all great. If you haven't seen this yet, do be sure you scroll down cuz I know it's on like the bottom half of page. But do be sure to scroll down because all these event hours are here. And I'll call something else out, which has been one of our other burning questions from sponsors this week, is like the schedule and travel and booking hotels. So we said this last week, I'll say it again this week. Monday, September 9th is technically, as you see on here, the first time you can come set up your booth. Now, if you have a crazy custom booth, you might be setting up before this, so But that's like 2 of you. So for most folks, um, Monday, September 9th is the first time you can come set up your booth and pick up your badges. So you've got this 4-hour window on the 9th. If you're already in town, if you already booked your travel for the 9th, great. Come on the 9th. It's super optional though. If not everybody on your team can make it, or you can't make it on the 9th at all, and you can only make it the morning of the 10th. So this was actually something we changed from year over year based on sponsor feedback from last year. A lot of folks were like, you know, I can't get there until the actual day one in the morning because of flight times or travel, or I can't get my whole team there. Like, can we get some time in the morning before booth setup? Like, I keep having to come the day before and then it comes, it becomes a 5-day excursion disaster, which, you know, I'm all, I'm here for it, but I get that it's a lot of time and energy and travel and cost, right? So this is something we did update year over year to make it a little bit easier for sponsors. So. If you cannot come until actual day 1, which is Tuesday, September 10th, you do have this morning block of time. So you have from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM. And at 2:30 PM, I'll call this out because this is something Tricia's been calling out on her one-on-one calls with folks. Like you should be booth and show ready by 2:30. So not that, you know, oh, I can, you know, show up at 2:30 and I'm there before attendees. No, no, no. Like attendees show up at 2:30. So you gotta be ready by, be show ready, right? By 2:30, you've almost the whole day. So even if you're like, okay, I can't get, like, my flight doesn't get there till noon, you still have a couple hours. So you do have a couple, like, you have more time in this morning. Again, that was based on a lot of sponsor feedback from last year. So if your team can only come the 10th, do try and come early so you can be show ready by 2:30. So that's, that's really the time you need to know. And then we go until 7 that day. The rest of the days you'll see are fairly— I mean, that's already a long day because we're coming from 9 to 7. The next 2 days are a little bit longer, so just wear comfy shoes. Um, Wednesday the 11th is from 7 to 8, and then Thursday is from 7:30 AM until you're done loading out, which some people load out in literally 60 seconds because they don't need to take anything with them, so they just walk away from their booth. Um, and some people need to ship stuff back, so it takes them like an hour. So again, it's It is long days. I know it's 3 days. We did try and adjust the schedule this year based on sponsor feedback. So hopefully this is helpful. You guys can also let us know this year if you like it this way or if you don't. But we, we did a very similar thing for London and got some good feedback. So again, this is the schedule. Digest this. And then I'll talk a little bit for 60 seconds on travel. So I know a few of you have been asking for like hotel blocks, room blocks. And then some of you were shocked to find out that some of our room blocks are already sold out. You're like, how can that be? As a reminder, sponsors are not the only people who go to SASTR Annual. We do have a lot of attendees who are coming to SASTR Annual this year. So you can take that as a good sign that some of the hotels are selling out. So what Trish and I have done over the last literally 24 hours is called all the hotels that we know in the extended area. Usually we try and stay within like a 10-mile radius. We're having to extend that because yeah, our, our two core hotels are definitely sold out. But there are others that have like remnant availability or that are just without, without, you know, just a little bit outside that radius, but still fairly close to the event center. So we are working on getting additional rooms into our block. As soon as we have those links live, which I suspect will be end of day, but just anchor on tomorrow or Monday, getting an email from Trish with a few more rooms in the room block. So again, there'll be maybe a little bit outside of our, you know, in immediate vicinity of the San Mateo County Event Center, but still fairly manageable to get to and at a discounted rate. So we are working on that. So just to call that out, you'll get another email from us separately with some new links since the other one's sold out. But again, take that as a good sign that all the attendees already booked their travel and rooms for FASTR. So you'll be in good company no matter where you're staying. Alright, I went through a few things on the deadlines that are tasks. So I'm just gonna flip over to what we call the task list here. If you haven't looked at this yet, I left mine red for a reason. This is what you still need to do. So it will turn red for you if you're past the deadline. It'll stay white if it's not past the deadline. And then it'll say completed if you've already completed it. So just keep that in mind there. There's obviously a few tasks for you guys to do if you haven't gone to that tab yet. And then I'll call it a few things that we updated in our resources, because I do think they're super handy. I can't go over them all today because there's, there's a lot of them. It would be a whole other webinar or meeting. But we did upload a fair amount of things again that you guys have been asking for. We uploaded to the portal because we had it. So again, keep asking us all your questions. Super helpful. It's helping all the other sponsors. But you'll see a few things in here now. So I'll just walk you guys quickly through these. So, um, this has been in here, but you haven't seen this yet. These are the Freeman booth graphics artwork submission guidelines. And this is things like, you know, if you can submit an AI file, that's an Adobe Illustrator file, um, you know, how much bleed should you put, all of that kind of like design stuff is in there. If you have a designer, just give this PDF to them with the booth specs, right? Like, just there's like 3 things you should download for the booth specs altogether. So I'll call those out. So this is the first one. The next one you should download are the sponsor Booth Design Guidelines at a Glance. These are the 3D ones that we have put together. And then there are what we call the In-Depth Booth Slicks. So these are more like, okay, how much space is from this monitor to that counter? This has literally all the measurements on it. So the at-a-glance ones are cool because they're 3D. I'll show you them in a second. And then the slicks are nice because they have the actual measurements. So I use all— again, I use all 3 of these in tandem. When we're designing our SaaS or booths, I give all 3 to our design team and I'm like, go ham, this is what I want. Here are the designs. And they suss it out from there. So, um, those are 3 that again, you should download together for when you're designing your booth. And then the top 4 all relate to shipping right now. Again, there's gonna be more resources in there, so they might not be in this order when you pop it up, but just know that like these 3 that say booths are for booth graphics. And then these 4 right now that we've tried to name similarly are about shipping. So we had some folks ask like, you know, I wanna start shipping my stuff. Where do I do it? So I'll, I'll go into it a little bit more in depth after I go over the booths. But basically what you need is already in the portal for you so you can download, you know, the shipping labels are in here. I know you guys don't have your booth numbers yet, but the labels are in here. If you don't know your booth by the time you're shipping it, you can just put it blank and just make sure you put your company name really big on it. 'Cause then, you know, Freeman will know who's at each booth and they'll, they'll get it to your booth. And there is really great information about material handling, which I'll cover in a second. And those 2 are not the same thing. So I will go over that. And then our FAQs. Again, if you haven't had the chance to look at these, we have refreshed these. So some of the stuff you're asking is probably things other people have asking. So we've repeated the shipping information here. You know, the link to upload your booth graphics. A couple of you guys were like, oh, like this, submission on this portal is too small. So we updated the link. So now you've got, you've got an open box folder that doesn't have a file size limit. So you can go ham on uploading your booth design graphics. There's a few rapid-fire questions. We're gonna add some more to this. We're trying not to make it too, too long. But yeah, I know Tricia has like a bunch of other questions that people have been asking to add to it. But with that, let me flip to a couple other things I wanna go over. So Again, I would say those deadlines and timelines, this is the— again, if you take anything away, take away this slide. Like, this is the most important thing. I would say next 2 important things are booking your travel, as I just mentioned. So we will send out those new hotel links as soon as we get them. Obviously, with the other ones that have been selling out, book that as soon as you can. Even when we release the new room blocks, they are fairly— you know, bigger blocks of rooms. But still, it doesn't mean that, like, you know, every sponsor still needs to book, and that might sell out in 60 seconds too. So definitely do that. That's not like a formal deadline we put on here, but again, recommend you do that once we release it. And then registration. So I've, I've seen some teams start to register now if they have their codes. But if you haven't yet, it's a good idea to come and do this, mainly because This is the best way to start to get on the attendee emails. So I've had a few people ask me like, oh, you know, I'm starting to get your emails or like Tricia's emails, but how do I get like the promotional emails that SaaStr is sending to all of its attendees? The best way to do that is to register yourself. So even with the sponsor all-access ticket, which is what you all have, you will still get the attendee emails that we send. It goes out to all ticket holders. It's not by type. Only certain things are. So it is why it is to all ticket holders. So this is the best way to get into the system. And in registration, so why it is a, why it's called a sponsor all access pass is that this gives you full access to SAS 3 annual, meaning you get sponsor hall early load-in hours. This is how we know, for instance, on Monday to let you into the building, because if your flag is an attendee, we're not gonna let you into the building. But if your flag is a sponsor, then we know to let you into the building. So, really great to register yourself under this ticket type as well as, you know, all of your team members, all of your vendors. Just keep in mind that tickets are not transferable. And we do do daily ID checks. I know sometimes that trips people up of like, okay, I'm gonna register Amelia, but Trish is gonna come day 2. So I'll just register one of them. And then on the next day, Trish will use Amelia's badge because she's a female and she's just gonna walk in except when Trish gets to registration. And the express lane for day 2, they're gonna see that the badge says Amelia and that her ID says Trish, and then Trish will not be let into the building. So we do do daily ID checks. You do have to pass these checkpoints. Trust me, you cannot get past them. So make sure that your— well, actually a good call too is that your ID matches what's on the badge. If you have like, you know, a legal name and like a preferred name, just bring 2 forms of ID then so that we know that one of them matches your badge. But bring it all 3 days, right? So make sure it matches. Usually folks just use their passport. If you're domestic and traveling within the US, you can use your, just your driver's license. Some people don't want to travel with their passport, and so they, you can still use your driver's license. We've seen international ones. Our team knows how to read them. But obviously make sure, you know, it is who you say you are. So, and that your ID photo looks like Thank you. I hope I don't have to say that too many times more, but you know, it should be you on the identification. That's the whole point. A couple other things to note here. So a few people have asked like, okay, if I am shifting people throughout my booth and, you know, Trish is only coming for one day, can I get extra tickets? Yes. But, you know, email us. That's not one of those things where you can, you know, just register Trish and then when you're on site say, oh, I only had Trish come this day. Now, can I get an extra ticket? It's much worse for us to try and do it on site. It's really speedy for us to do it now. So if you know you're gonna need extra passes or, you know, if any point before September 2nd, you know, you need extra passes, just reach out to one or both of us. Again, email events@sastrang.com so we can help you do that. The other two people you need to, you'll potentially need to register with this code is if you do have content and speakers, you will need to register your speakers with your code as well. And then last but not least, if you do have an activation and you're bringing in things like, you know, some people said they're gonna do a headshot booth or artist or food activation that they sourced, or they have, I don't know, that's kind of the ones off the top of my head. Those folks that are coming in will also need to be badged. So this is one, again, again, one of those cases where you will need to badge them and register them using your sponsor all-access code. Obviously, if you're already talking to us about your activation, we'll probably know that you need extra tickets to register your vendors. But I'm calling this out because it is a little bit of a process change from year over year. So in previous years, they could just show up and say, you know, I'm part of the Outreach team or Sales Loft team. I'm bringing, you know, cupcakes to the booth. We're not doing it that way this year for a number of reasons. So for this year, they do need to be badged. It is kind of a Anyways, I'm not gonna get into why, but yeah, they do need to be batched this year. So again, we'll probably be flagging that with you in the process as you do your speakers and your activations. If you're in one or both of those two buckets, you know, we'll also remind you of, hey, you know, please register your speakers and/or your vendors for your activation because they do need a batch as well. Again, do not freak out that this is counting towards your allotment. If you have vendors that you're bringing in or speakers, we can increase the number of tickets that you have under your code so that you can register them for the show. Obviously, we know, like, you know, your vendors are not really going to be sitting in sessions. They're going to be providing whatever your activation is. But we just want to make sure that everybody is badged this year on site. So we do have a lot of people coming to Annual. So again, this just helps with an overall safety perspective to have everybody badged. And that we also know that they're your vendor, right, of— oh, like, if they're lost or they're like, I just got here and I really didn't— I didn't read any of this stuff, but I'm here, you know, with IBM, or I'm here with Oracle, then we also know where to get them of like, okay, we know where the Oracle booth is, let us help you get over there. So it will help with a lot of things. But if you haven't done so yet, you know, pop in your code, use this link, and then pop in your code there, and then it will pop up the sponsor all access ticket type for you. A couple other things we wanna hit, 'cause I know we're already starting to run out of time. Hopefully you guys by now have gone into all the booth specs. I'll just quickly, again, breeze through these. Maybe I'll go through the Golds and Supers. The other ones are a bit more custom. But again, there's 3 things you should be looking at when you're designing your booth and submitting it to us by, you know, August 16th, which is the deadline. So as we said in the sponsor portal, right? So if you go into our resources, there's those 3 things you should be downloading when you are designing your booth. So it's the artwork submission guidelines, which is like how to format your files, all that kind of stuff. Like very technical. Uh, there's the guidelines at a glance, which is basically what I'm showing you here. These are the specs at a glance. These are the 3D renders that we do on top of what Freeman does, just because they're 3D. So sometimes this is actually helpful to folks to look at both, because then you've got the 3D and you've got the 2D flat. So you have all the measurements, but you also have the 3D. So you can see like, you know, how many people will fit in the booth? Like how much space is that? Like, Okay, if I put my back wall in there, you know, this counter covers a bunch of it. Like, maybe I shouldn't put text there. So it's really helpful to flip back and forth between the two when you are designing your booth. And then the last one will be the Slick Spy level. So this is— can I share my screen on this? Hold on, I have to reshare actually. Hold on, they look like this. It's because I'm not sharing my home. I'm gonna give you guys nausea from flipping back and forth, but these are What the slicks look like. So you can see, right, these are, they're, they're, they're a little bit 3D, but I call them flat because they don't have like people in them. Right. So again, hard to see for context, but this is literally the same thing as what I just showed you, just in a different format and with slightly more measurements. Right. So the measurements you see on the at a glance and on the slicks are the same, but I'll call out like, again, when you're designing, this page is not on the at a glance, right? This is the super technical version of like, okay, how much space is between the monitor to the top of the booth? 19 and 19 and 5/8 inches, right? Like, at a glance, you're not really gonna see that, but that is something your designer needs to know. So I like to use again both of these at once when I'm designing my booth. This will also tell you what to name your files. So that's super important. You know, typically they want you to put your company name. So I would say like Saster Panel A Back Wall. That way they know like this file is for the back wall. And in the Gold's case, there's also front counter. And I would say, you know, Saster Panel G1 Front Counter. They know that that specific file is for the front counter. Basically how this works for each level is you're going to submit one file per thing. So, um, in a Gold, right, there's two things that you're designing, an A and then a G1 front panel. You're going to submit one file for each. Again, I know sometimes people submit all their files in like one PDF or one AI file. Typically we can suss it out, but it just slows it down a bit. So it is much better if you submit, you know, one file per panel, as it were. Just makes things a lot easier. So we're not guessing because, you know, I don't know if you guys have used Illustrator, but usually when you load it up, everything comes up at the same size. So especially if you have your scale set to like a certain setting, everything kind of looks like it's the same size. So sometimes it's hard for us to suss out like, is that your back wall or is that your front cabinet? I know that sounds crazy for maybe if you're not like a technical design person, But yeah, that is how confusing it can be, because sometimes, again, depending on how you have your scale set, they will look like they are the same size. So if you don't want us to guess, please do name your files by the panel that they're for so that we know this one's for the back wall, this one's for the front. Makes it a lot easier. I'll just stay on the Slicks for a second, and I'll flip to the Super Gold for a second. So when you come into things like the Super Gold, again, I'll call out why it's cool to look at both. So on this version, right, like the headers look a lot more flatter than the one I just showed you guys on the at a glance. That's why it's always good to look at both in tandem, you know, put them both up on your screen when you're designing or telling your designer what to do. It's a lot easier to look at both of these, right? Because on ours, this look, you can, you can tell it's 3D. Like this header literally covers, you know, the top. I think it's 15 inches of your booth. So in ours, because it's our 3D, You'll see that it's a lot easier to see the 3D. So I'll pull it up one second here. You'll see what I mean. So yeah, this is why I like to use both. So on RSC, you can see that this header is, you can see a bit more that it's 3D. So like this comes over, right? The top 15 inches of your back wall. So just calling that out, that's why it's always good to use both. In this version, you can also visualize like, okay, if I'm gonna put my activation, this is the natural space of where to put it. Like, This is the space to do it. But the Slick is great because you need to know, right? Like how much, how much space is in between that top header to that TV right there. That's on the Slick. So use both of them. I think it's super handy. This also gives you like a good reference point of where we've also seen people design year over year. So on the headers, people usually put like a tagline. You know, I've seen people put their logos here because they know they're going to use like the bottom half to kind of set tables for their activation. Or I've seen people kind of leave this blank because they know they're going to take up the whole wall with like something in front of it with their activation. Again, just really helps you be more visual about it. And then on the front cabinet, you know, we've seen a lot of folks put their company logo and/or tagline of just, you know, what you do. Again, keep in mind you're gonna be with other sponsors at Sastre Annual in like a row of sponsor booths. Always good to be super clear to the point of, you know, what your company is and what you do so that it's, it's clear to attendees who maybe don't know you yet of what your company is and what they do for their ease of like, okay, if they're that's something that they would be potentially interested in versus something that, you know, they're not going to need. So yeah, hopefully that's helpful. So I'll, I'll flip to leads really quickly because we did do a whole webinar on the sponsor specs. So if you missed that, again, we'll drop the playlist in. I think some of you have it now, but it's just on our YouTube channel. We did a whole separate hour just on booth specs where we went to each one. In depth, but it is an hour, so I can't do that now 'cause we don't have an hour left. But I'll talk quickly on leads and then handling, and then we can flip to any questions you guys might have. And then Trish will catch me on anything I missed. But again, a lot of you've been asking on like, what is the lead scanning? How does it work? 'Cause you know, it's different from event to event. So how it works specifically at SaaStr is we use this app called Capitello to capture leads. It is different if you were a sponsor of SAS Re:ANNUAL last year. This is a completely different app than it was last time. If you're new, you don't even know that. But if you are a repeat sponsor, which I think is about half of you, um, this is a different app than last year. So it is a new app. Like I said, you can download it now. Um, but how we do it is like we're the style of show where you do not get, like, you don't need to order a device to do lead capture. Um, you will just be using your phone. Now, if you do need to order a device for lead capture, that is something you'll be able to do with like our AV team. You can rent like, you know, I, they've got like iPad minis you can do. They've got phones you can rent. So that if you don't want to use your phone, or I know a few folks have a company policy that they can't use their phones and their own devices to scan, you'll be able to do and like rent the devices with our AV team and then we'll preload the app on there for you so that you can then just log in. So that'll be coming to the portal shortly if you need to do it that way. But otherwise, for majority of you, I know many people just use their own device to capture because it's a little bit easier. So you use something, you know, like your iPhone to capture devices. Basically, you know, you're just gonna, when they walk up and you want to scan them, you'll use your camera and scan their QR code and then it'll give you their information. What's nice about the, the new app that we're using, CapTelo, is it is a bit more configurable than last year, which again was based on sponsor feedback. So you can add a lot more fields that You know, if you want extra fields above and beyond what Saastr provides to you, then you can configure your CapTelo so that when it scans, it will like prompt your salesperson or whoever's in your booth to say, okay, like write in and fill in their phone number, like ask them for their phone number and put it in, or, you know, mark them as a warm lead or a cold lead. You can do all that kind of stuff. You can, you know, put custom questions into your backend. So again, if there's things you know you want your team to ask, it will like prompt them to ask it when they're putting in the lead. Or if you wanna keep it simple, then you know, you could just use the default and it'll populate by default and then you can keep scanning people. So I've seen people do it both ways. You know, some people go for speed, some people go for quality of lead, really dealer's choice. So that's the big information on that and that's how we do it. I know we get this question a lot, so just calling this out of how many devices can simultaneously use the Lead App license at a single time. You can have up to 8 people using it at once on one single license. So If for some reason you're like a Diamond or Platinum and you're like, I need more than that, then speak with us because we can get you an additional license. But for most folks, 8 is a lot. That's probably more than your actual allotment of tickets, so, or people who are actually coming. But yeah, so most of you will be fine with the 8 devices it comes with by default. It does work offline, which is nice this year. Yeah, it's super easy. We just used it for London and it worked Really, really, I had, knock on wood, no complaints. So I'm hoping the same for annual. Okay, last thing here, and then we'll wrap on any questions because I know we're approaching 40 minutes, which again is kind of long. But thanks for bearing with us and listening to all this information as we ramble about you at SASTR. Hopefully this is all helpful for your booth planning and to help you maximize, right, your onsite presence at SASTR. So shipping material handling, I'll call this out and maybe I'll have Trish help me with this section because They are two different things. So we've gotten this question a lot lately of like, where do I ship my stuff? So first and foremost, I'll simply answer the question of like, this is where you ship your stuff. And there's a few different dates on here. So if you're like, I'm ready to go and I wanna ship it now, um, they're actually not gonna start receiving until August 7th. But to that point of like, if your stuff is coming from far away or you made it internationally and you wanna ship it now, like just ship it to Freeman's warehouse. That's, that's where most of your shipments will go. I would say that's where 99% of shipments go is to the warehouse. So this is the address, like I said, in the portal we did add for you guys, you know, the, the shipping labels. If you're shipping to the warehouse, this is the label that you download. If for some reason you're shipping to the show site, which I'll explain why I don't recommend in a second, this is the one that you download. And then there's two, there's two guides in here on material handling and then cart information, which I'll go over, but good to read these. And also know that if we have time next week, because we are also going over the floor plan activations, we'll also try and go over the Freeman portal that you guys are going to get access to next week. This is literally a whole separate portal on like shipping and it has like a shipping calculator. So if you're like, okay, I know I need to ship 16 boxes. I cannot calculate that price for you, but this one has a handy calculator that'll do it for you. So if you're like, oh, that's maybe more than I wanna spend on shipping or material handling, this will give you a good sense of what that is. So you can maybe like up or down the quantities that you're shipping to the show. Again, why we do it this way is because there are very strict union rules in San Mateo. And so you do need to ship all your stuff and do all your material handling by a Freeman. So, We do, you know, like to stay and remain in good standing with our union friends and partners, um, in San Mateo County. So please do read this once it goes live. I know it's a lot to read because you're like, okay, there's already a lot to read in the SASTR portal, then I've got to read the Freeman portal. Again, that's why we do these webinars to try and call out things like at a glance so that you can just get to where you need. If at some point you feel overwhelmed, just ask me or Trish, right? There's no bad questions. We're always happy to jump on, help you guys get what you need to do. We've also started to loop in folks directly with Freeman if you've got like specific questions. So again, we're happy to do that so that you can chat, chat with them directly, right? And make sure your stuff gets to show and they can help you with all the costs and that kind of thing. So, oh, it's good to start early on that process, right? The sooner we get to, the sooner we get to show, the more like last minute questions they get. And it's harder for them to field them all. So the sooner the better if you already know what you want to ship and bring to annual. So these are the shipping, shipping addresses. If you have a super last minute thing you are shipping to Sastre, then you are gonna wanna ship it to the show site. But note that this is September 9th, so this is literally the day before, like they will not be receiving shipments before this date. Um, and it's a big property. So if you guys have never been, which maybe I should have covered at the top, but, um, I will next time when we have time. The San Mateo County Event Center is huge. It is. I think I saw it's 48 acres, so it's almost 50 acres. There's a lot of entrances. So if your, if your shipment is not labeled like this, then they could randomly drop it at a gate. They could randomly, like the UPS man might be like, I think that's the event center, but I'll just drop it wherever I feel like I drop all my packages. They may not get it specifically to this website, which is like the office address. So. Again, I don't recommend trying to be sneaky and like shipping to this address before the fact. It really does throw off a lot of things. I know, because I'm speaking from experience of sponsors who have done this year over year and just shipped to the show site willy-nilly. It does throw off a lot of things because other vendors are shipping to the show site, meaning Sellster ships to the show site and Freeman ships their stuff to the show site because, you know, We are the hosts of the show. So when you ship to the show site before the 9th, your stuff gets lumped in with our stuff and sometimes we can't suss out where your stuff went if you shipped it to the show site on like September 7th because we're like, oh, it's in that big pile of boxes that is either Freeman or my stuff or Freeman is handling my stuff and then I don't know where it went. So don't recommend doing that. So yeah, we— yeah, I don't recommend doing that. Again, if it's unavoidable, then yeah, ship to the show site directly, right? If you're like, okay, I know it's something that like they, we, we really can't get it until the 9th and like this is the first day we can get it to the show, then yeah, then in that case, you know, don't ship to the warehouse because we won't get there in time. Ship directly to the event center. Just know again, like that's the most chaotic route you could take. Like I always like to err on the side of early. I personally ship a bunch of stuff just to my house and then bring it to Samhainster. So, you know, I wanna make sure it gets there. So. I don't know. I don't— again, if it's unavoidable, then yes, that option is there for you. It is the happy path, I would say, just to ship to the warehouse. It's a lot easier, and I'll tell you why. So some of this is due to material handling. So shipping and material handling are two different things. Shipping is like, you know, getting down to the post office and boxing up all your stuff from the office, getting it to UPS, and shipping from UPS to the warehouse. That's the shipping part of it. Or if you have a swag vendor that you want to, you know, send a bunch of shirts to your booth for swag and they're just going to ship it directly from, you know, the vendor's warehouse in wherever, New York to California to Freeman's warehouse. That is, again, the shipping part of it. The material handling part is a little bit different. So it's basically what happens after you ship it, right? Of like, okay, we have received a delivery at the warehouse or at San Mateo County Event Center. Status for our sponsor. What happens with it now? So that whole piece of it is separately handled via material handling. Again, this is a union rule. This is not something Tricia or I can waive for you. Also, Tricia and I are not in the union, so this is not something we can do for you. Like, I'm not in the union, I can't get status after all this time planning events in San Mateo. But we're not in the union, but we do have plenty of union partners. Like, for instance, you know, I just said, like, I ship my stuff to the to the event center. Sometimes I do, right? But I literally do not touch my boxes. Like, I have material handling via Freeman. Also, I shouldn't be touching my boxes. So they will take it from, you know, place A to place B of wherever it needs to go. For me, I have things that go to a lot of places, but for you, right, they're just taking it from the shipping receivements to your booth. So this is a separate thing, right? So this is what we call material handling. Basically, they're taking your boxes. To your booth, usually not all at once, right? And so I think this is confusing sometimes for sponsors of like, how does that work? Like if I'm shipping 20 boxes to Freeman, let's just say, because you know, it's a 3-day event, I've got all my swag into these, whatever, 10 or 20 boxes, but I only want, you know, like 2 or 3 at a time because that's all that's going to fit in my booth and my cabinet. And you know, you really can't be spilling into the aisles and all that kind of stuff. So material handling and storage is where that kicks in, right? So they'll take your stuff. Let's just say you shipped it to the warehouse. They've got your stuff at the warehouse. They'll take it to SaaS Renewal. Once they start to unpack, if you've already filled out, you know, this material handling checklist and form, then they'll know, you know, okay, send me 2 boxes on Monday the 9th because I'm coming Monday the 9th for loading. Great. They'll give you 2 of those boxes. They'll bring you the rest when you want them, right? So or you can go tell them that, oh, I ran out of time and I need some more. Like, that is the material handling part of it. It's literally handling of your packages, your shipments. And also your materials. So I'll call that out for, you know, all of our sponsors that have activations, whether you're getting it from SaaS or you sourced it yourself, you will still have this material handling, right? Of like, okay, I've got all these ingredients that are coming, or I've got all these cookies that are coming. That is still considered a material handling. So just know that these, you know, these all fall into union jurisdictions. You don't have to, you don't have to be too in the weeds on that. Just know that shipping and material handling are two different things. And there are different fees associated with this, right? Again, not things that Tricia and I can waive and not things you can— not things that you should try or want to skirt around. Again, we've gotten into a really great place with, you know, our partners in San Mateo. We've been in San Mateo for the last 4 shows now. We'd like to, you know, keep everybody happy. And, you know, there are usually things like fire marshals on site and health inspectors and union reps. So we like to keep a happy bunch. You know, it's a big event. So for material handling, again, that is something that does include things like, you know, ingredients. If you've got an activation, if you have an activation that's not food, then, you know, if they're, if they're just bringing themselves like a photographer or something, then that's a little bit easier. But again, we'll get into more of this. If that was confusing for you, that's okay. Again, just reach out to us. We can loop you in with Freeman. Many of you are already in the loop with them on, you know, what you're shipping there and how you want to get it to your booth. I know sometimes people think that's like a frustrating thing to do, to be like, do I really have to like do the shipping stuff now? Like, why is it so complicated just to get my boxes from like point A to point B? Um, again, it's just rules that we don't control of, you know, of how material handling works. But also think about the size and scope of SaaStr. It's a lot of things. Like, people ship a lot of stuff to us. Like, we're shipping things, they're shipping things, our exhibitor— like, to build all your booths, you know, they have to bring all that stuff in. It's carpet and things you don't think about, like lights, chairs, like all that stuff comes into the venue. The venue does not come pretty. It comes empty. So just bear in mind all that stuff comes in disaster and that's why there are all these guidelines, right? We want to get everything to the right place. So we want to make sure your boxes for your booth get to your, get to you on time when you want them. And that also, you know, you can replenish if you're sending them all at once. So that's really the moral of the story there. I'll end on some FAQs that people have dropped into the chat. So there is a good question we've been getting about how attendee and sponsor meals are handled. So let me flip to the timeline on the portal. I'll go back here. Dun, dun, dun, dun. It's loading. Yay. Okay. So I'll call a couple things out. You can even see it on this map a little bit. Right. So if I zoom out, yeah. Okay. This whole thing is the San Mateo County Event Center. I was not joking when I said it's 40 acres and you're like, oh, Trader Joe's is right there. Trader Joe's is far. It is not like, oh, I'm gonna walk across the street and like go to Trader Joe's and get a salad. That is far. Like you could do it in a car and it would take you 2 to 5 minutes if you get stopped at all the stoplights. Uh, But it's not, that's not walkable, that Trader Joe's. Trust me, I've been to the event center so many times, guys, in my life. Whole Foods, kind of walkable, but takes you 30 minutes. Fieldwork, again, kind of walkable, probably take you 45 minutes. These things are not fastly or quickly accessible is what I'm trying to say. By the Whole Foods, there is a Starbucks, just as a pro tip. If you wanna go to Starbucks on the way in, there's a Starbucks there. I think it's called Town Place if you want to mobile order. It's the one by Whole Foods. That's the one. They do get mobbed during SASTR. So keep that in mind if you're like, oh, I'm just gonna mobile order on the way in. Do it early because, or go to a Starbucks near your hotel because this one gets lit up during SASTR because you have to think again, think about the fact that you are, yes, you are sponsors and we love you guys. And there's, there's a lot of you already. Then you add in all the attendees that are coming, then you add in all the people that are production people. So like all the carpenters, all the AV guys that are calling the show, setting up your booth. Putting out your carpet, cleaning your booth. All those people come early, so they're all hitting Starbucks early. So, you know, maybe hit your Starbucks near you, or just, you know, make a drip coffee. We have coffee on site. But yeah, you know, there are a lot of people who show up for Zest. All that to say that. But for how meals are covered, so I'll call out a few things here. So again, it's On the, on the, on the 9th, we typically don't, we usually just do like snacky things during load-in, like coffee. Again, it's 2 to 6, so most people aren't there that long. So I'll start on the 10th, which is like the first full day of Saster. So in this, there is all-day coffee. So, you know, if you're like, okay, I don't have time or Starbucks is mob and it's going to take me longer than I thought it was, there is all-day coffee starting on the 10th. So at this 9 AM, there will already be coffee set because we'll already be there since 7. So coffee will be there because that's Amelia's number one thing personally is to have coffee. So Don't worry, I got all my coffee and tea lovers, because I like to be caffeinated. So there will be all-day coffee. It might not always be specialty coffee, because that's at like certain hours, but there will always be some sort of coffee available. Sometimes it's cold brew, sometimes it's hot. There's always some sort of coffee around. Trust me, I always check. So there's always some sort of coffee around. I think this year we have like 3 specialty coffee vendors, because I'm just trying to buy out all the coffee in San Mateo. So yeah, there's always coffee. There will be lunch this day for sponsors. So again, I know that 9 to 2:30 is a fair block of time. So in the sponsor hall, we will set up lunch just for sponsors. You guys are the only ones around. We'll set up lunch. Again, this is a day where like, you know, if you set up your booth in half an hour and you're like, oh, I have time to walk to Starbucks or Whole Foods, this would be the day to do it. You do a— it's a nice walk actually. This would be the day to do that. So you don't have to eat the food, but we will have lunch on this day. And then how this works during opening reception and happy hour is there, there's gonna be food and drink there, right? So there's gonna be, I think we're doing Taco Night cuz it's Tuesday, Taco Tuesday, during the opening reception, happy hour. That also means, you know, there's wine and beer and all that kind of stuff. And then starting Wednesday, you get into the full days. I'll just give you the anecdote on breakfast. Most people do not eat breakfast at FASTR. I don't know what it is, but every year I order breakfast and nobody eats it. You could be like, oh, I'll eat it, Amelia. You say that and then you're like, oh, I just grabbed something at my hotel and now I don't need breakfast. Like none of our attendees, I don't know what it is. Trust me, I've tried every year. I've tried to order breakfast and then like nobody eats it. So, we usually don't have breakfast. There is coffee. There's, again, there's all-day coffee all 3 days. Usually I don't do breakfast because nobody eats it. So yeah, you can plan on eating breakfast on the way, but lunch and then like, you know, kind of a light dinner I would say is provided on day 2. Lunch being the main meal, and there's tons of snacks throughout the day. So again, we are a 48-acre campus. We do know that most folks don't go off campus, so we do try and bring everything to you. Keep in mind, you know, there's all the other sponsor activations. There's all the campus activations we do, like all the specialty coffees. I'm trying to get a soft serve truck personally. So all that kind of stuff is on property. Again, I know it's a massive property, so we do try and bring those things on site. And with your sponsor, all access, is bad. You know, you can eat in any of the attendee areas. So anything that's an attendee area, there's going to be, I think, 4 in the sponsor hall this year. So there's going to be a lot of areas right in your eyesight line to go to. Um, the one, the one thing that we, again, breakfasts we don't really do, and then we don't really do dinners because people don't stay this late. So we do like, you know, what we call like heavy snacks, um, during things like the happy hour and the big party. Some people are like, you know, to me, that's enough of a meal. So people are like, no, I need like a sit-down dinner after this. You don't do a sit-down dinner. It's also still early in the day. So I don't know, a lot of sponsors will still do like after parties and stuff like this afterwards or host their own customer dinners. This gives you kind of the room to do that. Or if you just want to go back to your room and have a quiet meal, you can do that. And then, yeah, so same thing for day 3. You know, there's, there's coffee in the morning, there's lunch, there's all the activations. And then, yeah, during happy hour, I would say again, heavy snack. 6:00, and then we kind of break there. Most people move out, they just walk away. But if you have stuff that you need to load out, then you have 3 hours to do that. And then some people leave this day, honestly. Like, if you want to save on hotel and you could just grab a flight, you know, if you're leaving, if you, if you stay until 6:00, you can make it to the airport in 45 minutes to an hour and still catch a flight that evening, right? If you want to catch a red-eye. So some people do leave that day. It's a long day, but yeah, if you're like, I want to get home, then yeah, you could still leave that day. Let me check the chat for any other questions. That was a good one. Trish, anything I missed? I know I just rambled at everybody for an hour, but anything you think I missed? You covered material handling really well. We did have someone this morning who said, I don't wanna ship anything. Can I just have all of my reps hand carry my swag, my literature? Oh, no. And bring them the morning of. Um, that's a no. Good question, but no. Yeah, I've heard that here today. Yeah, so yeah, I know in the past— again, some of these rules have changed over here. So in the past, that used to be okay. Um, I will say San Mateo has changed the rules, and so has Fremont over here, on things like material handling, on things like shipping, on things like, you know, there's a reason why we're making you guys register all your vendors with a badge this year. That was from like a county, you know, rule change. Like, again, most of this, we just, it's for the safety of everybody that's coming to SASTR and ease of like loading in an event at this size and scale. Freeman's got to do it, right? So again, there's, there's no way to skirt around that. I wouldn't try and skirt around that this time. I know a lot of people tried last year and it became an issue, which is why literally the county changed the rules. So don't do that this time. I don't think they're going to be as lenient because they can't be, right? Like, I know in the past, you know, they've tried to turn a blind eye to some rule breakers, but, you know, our scale and size is so big. Again, guys, like, it's not just you, right? We've got all the attendees, all the production people that we are keeping safe. And, you know, if you try and hand carry things and we see that happening again, they're not going to be as lenient this time because the rule has changed just in the county with the union rules and stuff. And so, yeah, they're not going to be as lenient. So please don't try that. Do the material handling. And also, you know, in a worst-case scenario, it sucks. Like, if, you know, we get somebody who tries to break the rules, bring stuff in, like, oh, I can carry this box, it's only 20 pounds. But I don't know, you fall or the box breaks or something happens, then all your stuff is broken and then you're mad at us because all your stuff is broken. Or, you know, accidents do happen. It is a liability. That's why we don't want you guys carrying any of your materials in. It's just a big liability issue. But to that point too, you guys should have all your own insurance policies and like COIs. I always think it's a, it's a must. I'm almost at the point where we might start requiring it next year. But yeah, I think that's a must, right? Because you never know what will happen. It's a huge event. Like it's always, this is something too where most of you already have, if you ask your controller, your finance person, you already have some sort of company liability policy. It's usually easy just to get like staff for annual and like the event center name so that you're covered. That's usually the best. Route we've gone down with folks. Again, a lot of people will give us their COIs. You know, it covers your booth, it covers your staff, it covers your travel. Great idea to do it. Good question. Anything else? All right, cool. Well, to wrap, thanks to everyone who stayed the full hour. I know I saw some drop-offs, so we will be sending this recording. Again, thanks for coming. Hopefully this is helpful. If you think of any questions that you think would be helpful to yourself or, or, you know, your fellow sponsors, do let us know. You know, don't let us dampen your mood of like, okay, there's so much to memorize for SaaS during GoThru. Like that's what we're here for. We've been doing a lot of individual calls with sponsors, just get everybody up to speed, go through your specific logistics, right? Like what you have individually might not be pertained to everybody else, or if you're bringing a lot versus a little, right? Then, then, you know, it might be more complicated, but that's why we're here to help. You know, I know it's in whatever, 61 days. So some of you might be starting to feel the time pressure, but it's a lot of time, right? Like you've got time to get your booth graphics in, think about what you wanna do. If you wanna do an activation, you don't have to. A lot of people, I would say the trend this year is doing things that tie into their product more specifically with the activation. So just trying to keep in mind, and we are doing a bunch of things like, you know, AI Summit and And obviously it's SaaStr, so we talk a lot about scaling. So anything you do to play into that, but yeah, just remember, like, you know, all these things that are happening are good signs, right? Like hotels getting full, great. Like we want more people to come in the annual. It's more, it's more potential leads for you guys. You know, we want the show to be as big as possible. So if we have to do things like material handling a certain way, it's just a way to do it so that we can have a safe and fun 3-day event. You guys can have a really good SaaStr and then hopefully get all the leads that you need. All right, well thanks everyone for joining. We will send all this out. Look for, look for Tricia email. I know you guys look forward to them now, hopefully. And we will be back next Thursday if we don't talk to you. I know we're talking to some of you later today, so see you later. If not, we will see you next Thursday. And yeah, just email us with any questions, events@sasrank.com, and we will see you next week.