The Ultimate Attendee Guide to SaaStr Annual 2023

instantly. If you have other folks who want to see it, it will be on our YouTube channel, which I'll drop a link to in the chat. I've also dropped a link in the chat to our slides, so if you want to follow along, you can follow along there. Other things I'll put in the chat— so we put a link to our YouTube, so if you want the recording, it is live streaming, so it's there instantly right now as we speak. The slide decks are there as well, which I will share right now so you can all see my screen. And at any point, we're going to go through a lot of information. We may not get through it all. So if you guys have additional questions, please drop them in the chat. We'll try and answer as many as possible. If we don't, you can also email our team. I'm going to drop it in the chat, annual@safetrank.com. Our team there can help you with any specific questions that we may not cover today. So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and get started. So hopefully you guys are all super excited. We have a SAFETRANK Annual just next week. This is our ultimate, what we call our ultimate attendee guide. So we do this kind of every year as a prep for new or returning attendees as like everything you would need to know before you show up for SAS Re:ANUAL next week. There is a lot of really great info, so I know it's a lot to process and digest. The main key is to come, have fun, but this should help you set you up for success for while you're here and to make the most out of SAS Re:ANUAL because there are a lot of different activations. We are live on site, so you might see some people in my background pop in and out, which is really fun. But yeah, we are— live actually setting up. So fun fact, it does take about 2 weeks to set up SAS for Annual. So we've been setting up for about a week already. We've got a whole nother week to go before all of you show up. But we're super excited for that. So without further ado, SAS for Annual, as many of you may know, is the world's number one cloud and the biggest SAS-only conference in the world each year. So this year, it's going to be September 6th through 8th at the San Mateo County Event Center. We're expecting upwards of 12,500 people across 3 days. You know, there's a lot of founders, VCs, investors. It's indoor-outdoor, which we'll chat about, and is actually the 9th FASTR Annual. So should be a good one. Just a quick overview there. So what we want to go over today were some attendee tips and tricks, again, to help you get the most out of FASTR Annual. So one thing I want to call out that I will drop into the chat as well. So we put these slides in the chat. Another handy resource is the Annual Attendee Portal. So I'm just gonna open that up so you guys can see it, and I'm gonna drop it into the chat. I'm gonna keep putting links in there. So the Annual Attendee Portal is super handy. It's got a lot of great information. A lot of what I'm covering is actually already in the attendee portal. It's got like these nice hot links at the top. So if you need something about location, shuttles, parking, networking, etc., it's got everything kind of there. So Like I said, I'll go through this, but at some point you have to drop off too early. The attendee portal is a great place that we're keeping up to date with a lot of really great information for you guys. So let me go back to full screen here. As you probably know and have booked your travel, the 2023 SASRA Annual is back at the San Mateo County Event Center. So if you came in 2022 or 2021, this is the same place that we've been. So this is our third year. Um, at the San Mateo County Event Center. It's also sometimes called the San Mateo County Fairgrounds. It is a massive property, so do bear that in mind. It's about 40 acres. It is a lot of walking, so wear sensible shoes. It's indoor-outdoor, so make sure you pack layers, all that kind of really great stuff. Um, it is about 20 or 30 minutes if you're going from the airport to get here. So if you're coming straight from the airport, we do have bag check here. So I know some folks have been asking us in email if you know, you're coming straight from the airport on day one, can you drop your, like, can you come straight here and bring your bag and check it? We do have a bag check and coat check here available. And same thing on your way out, like if you're leaving directly from SASRA Annual on the last day, you can utilize our coat check to store your bags. It is about 30 minutes to SFO or another 40 minutes south to the Peninsula Palo Alto area there. If you've got any offsite customer meetings, just to factor in time. Do bear in mind though, there is a lot of kind of traffic around the South Fair Annual event. So just keep that in mind as you go along and kind of plan out your travel. Do note that South Fair Annual is indoor/outdoor. So again, like I mentioned, there's going to be lots of available rooms, but make sure you've got hats, sunglasses, sunblock. A lot of our sponsors will be giving these away. It can be cooler in the mornings. Like we were here early for the last week already. It's pretty chilly in the mornings and kind of dewy, and then it gets warm in the afternoons, and then it gets cold again at the end of the day. So, you know, for the big party and any evening events we have on site, definitely good to pack layers and again utilize that coat check so that you can, you know, store a jacket, etc. We are at San Mateo County Event Center, which I've already mentioned. It's a big campus, so a few tips on getting here. Our official attendee hotel is the Crowne Plaza Foster City San Mateo. It is sold out. So unfortunately, if you haven't booked yet, I know it's full. But if you are staying there, this is our key attending hotel. It's where we have our satellite registration. So if you're staying here, you can pick up your badge here following the satellite registration schedule on Tuesday and Wednesday. And if you are staying here, you'll also get one of these fun Expensify room cards. Some of our team has started to get them already. They're like super cute. So yeah, you'll get— you'll know you're in the right place if you get an Expensify room key card. And this is also where our shuttle picks up and drops off. So this is our main hotel location. If you're not staying here this year and you're having a little FOMO about that, definitely book early for next year to stay there because there's a lot of perks for staying there. If you're not staying there and you need to utilize parking or rideshare or Uber or Lyft or anything like that, there is on-site parking for attendees. It is pre-assigned. So you do have to request your parking in advance. You cannot just show up and park. If you have not requested your parking before the event starts, then you will need to utilize the overflow parking at Crown Plaza. It's free and you can get on the shuttle, but on-site parking is pre-assigned. So you do need to have a parking pass. It's really easy to get a parking pass. You just request one. You literally click this link again. It'll take you to our attendee portal. You'll go to the section that says parking and request your parking for what you need. You're gonna wanna say general attendee parking, and then you could choose your days if you're coming all 3 days, or if you're coming like 2 of the days and submit your information there to request parking. Again, if you plan on parking, please plan on doing that ASAP so we can help you get a parking pass in the right place. Just also another rough rule of thumb, as we've told our sponsors and vendors, you know, again, this is a heavy rideshare, Uber drop-off, like Lyft kind of place, so it does get fairly crowded. It does do surge pricing. There's a lot of people coming to FASTR Annual, so if you've got a team or multiple team members, it may be actually more cost-effective expensive to get something like a rental car parked on site, or to get a rental car, park at the Grand Plaza, take the shuttle, you know, that's completely free. So again, just pro tip there, it does usually do surge pricing around South Carolina when you're coming here just to the volume of people who are getting in an Uber and Lyft to come to the show. While you're here on site, because it is a massive campus, we do have these things called pedicabs and trams that will help get you around within the campus. So This is what they look like. Here they'll be Sastre Annual branded for this year. So you'll see the pedicabs and the trams. You can jump on those at any time. They're going on like a constant loop around the campus, and they can help you get from like one stage to another and get you where you need to go. Okay. The shuttle from the Crown Plaza. So this is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We put the times here. If you're staying at the Crown Plaza, you'll see some signs there of where to go for the shuttle. It's just like right outside the lobby. As well as a reminder of these times. It is really early in the morning till really late at night because a lot of our sponsors make this. So you should definitely be covered off from an attendee's perspective to get on the shuttle at any time coming or going from Crown Plaza. This does do a constant loop, so it's about every 15 minutes. Sometimes it's a little quicker, sometimes it's a little slower depending on how many people are loading up, but it literally is just going back and forth. So it will only go to the Crown Plaza and back to San Mateo County Event Center to, uh, to SAFSR. It will not go anywhere else. So if you're at a nearby hotel to the Crowne Plaza, you can definitely walk to the Crowne Plaza and get on the shuttle. I know there's a lot of other like smaller hotels nearby. You can totally do that. Or again, if you're staying elsewhere and you wanna park at the Crowne Plaza and park there for free and then get on the shuttle, you can do that as well. Or park any, again, anywhere nearby Crowne to get on the shuttle. It's a really easy way to get in and out of Safter. It's quite handy. These are trams that will have all day kind of looping around. Other things to note, it is a very busy time around San Mateo, so you know there is going to be factor in that traffic time, right? There's other things, faster annual going on. I know on Twitter it seems very gloom and doom about the Bay Area, but let me tell you there was tons of traffic for me to get here this morning. Like the Bay Area is still busy. There's plenty of people who live here and commute here, so definitely travel in some fact— factor in some travel time no matter where you're staying to get to the San Mateo County Event Center. Other things that are nearby if you, you know, need to pop out to business center, et cetera. There is Hillsdale Malls nearby. It's super handy. So again, that's kind of anything you need. There is a Starbucks that's walkable, but it's about a 20 to 15-minute walk each way. It does get really jammed during Annual, so expect kind of long wait times if you are looking for Starbucks. We do have tons of coffee on site, but if you need a caramel macchiato specifically or a pumpkin spice latte, yeah, be prepared to wait because that Starbucks is always busy outside of Annual, so it gets uber busy during Annual. I'll show you guys in a second here on the campus map where all of our coffee is. We do have specialty coffee on site too, so like people will make you lattes, cold brew, mochas, hot chocolate, etc. So I'll point out where that is, but you don't have to go off site. Um, but just a few other things, and when you are coming to FASTR Annual, um, there are a few different entrances to FASTR. So if you, you know, put in your Uber or your Lyft that you want to go to the San Mateo County Event Center, kind of depending on the driver, they'll take you to either location. So if you have somewhere in specific you want to go, you can use one of these addresses. It just depends on if you want to be like closer to the hub or closer to maybe some of the stages, or if you have like a piece of content you're trying to go see that you're running late for. Otherwise, honestly, you're really fine just putting in San Mateo County Event Center. It doesn't matter either way, you know, we'll drop you off. And honestly, traffic control will really direct them once they get here anyway for attendees' purposes. So yeah, bear that in mind. There are different addresses. So if you want one in particular, or if you are parking, just keep these different addresses in mind for a smoother pickup and drop-off. Again, most— again, most Ubers and Lyfts that are local kind of know where to take you for the drop-off. Some tips and tricks for registration. So there are a few things you do need to bring with you to SASRA Annual and also keep with you during SASRA Annual. So one, we do need a valid photo ID for you to pick up your badge. And we do need it every day upon reentry. So this can either be a driver's license or a passport, either one, but we do need one of those for entry. You should have your ticket confirmation code. If you have the app, which we'll chat about in a second, it's really handy to get it on the app. It'll make checking in a breeze because you literally just scan in and it automatically checks you in. It's really easy. We do have a health and safety policy, which I'll chat about in a second, but do keep in mind that your badges must be worn at all times. So I know some folks don't love to wear these all day. You do need to wear them all day. We have a lot a lot of people coming to Thafter Annual. They do have to be worn at all times and every day that you come to Thafter. If you lose your badge, there is a reprint fee, so be mindful of that. Like, if you've left it at your hotel and you come back the next day, there is going to be that reprint fee if you've lost your badge or you need a reprint. Um, badge swapping and transferring— I want to specifically call this out— is strictly prohibited. So if I check in day one, somebody else cannot come and who's you know, as a friend of mine and say, oh, I'm Amelia and I'm coming day 2. We do a daily ID check, so they will know if Amelia is not Amelia. So keep that in mind. That is strictly prohibited. Other thing just to note, everyone does need to pick up their own badge. So I know a lot of you have teams coming. Unfortunately, like, I cannot pick up badges for myself and the rest of my teammates. Everyone does need to pick up their own badge just for everyone's, again, safety and comfortability. Once you do have your badge though, I will say you will see signs for our express lane. So if you get your badge at satellite registration or if you come day 1 and then you come back day 2 and you've already got your badge, look for those signs for the express lane. That'll help get you in faster. Basically, if you go through express, they're just going to check your temperature and your ID on your badge. They're not going to go through like, you know, the whole process of checking you in. So definitely utilize those express lanes the following subsequent days that you're coming to SASCER to come in faster. Again, there are those daily temperature and ID checks. So again, not worth trying to do any sort of weird badge swapping. It is prohibited. You can't do it in our system. It doesn't even allow you to transfer tickets between folks. So not worth the effort. Just buy the extra ticket if you need it. Obviously no weapons of any kind are allowed. And there's also some prohibited items I just wanna call out, out that alcohol's not allowed, pocket knives not allowed. I know some folks have tried to bring like, you know, if you're, Again, if it's not— if you can't bring it on the plane, don't bring it to the chapter. Don't pick it up and then bring it to the chapter. Glassware is not allowed, right? We don't like glass that can break. Drones are not allowed. Balloons. I know there's some random ones on here. Unapproved costumes. I want to call that one out. Are not allowed. Again, this is just for everyone's safety and comfortability and also respectful to our sponsors who are paying money to bring their mascots and have their costumes. Unapproved costumes will not be allowed into this year's event, so do bear that in mind. Anything that you bring with with you is obviously, hopefully you know this, subject to search by now. So we may throw away any limited restrictions items, meaning if you bring costumes that are not allowed, signs that are not allowed, anything that's not allowed, we will stow it with us if possible and then give it back to you at the end of the event. Um, or we may ask that you do not come in depending on what it is. Again, that's really for prohibited items, things you can't bring on an airplane, things that are rogue marketing-esque kind of things. We want everyone to be safe and comfortable here, um, and have a really good time. So a quick note on outside food and beverage. So if you're running over to Safter from lunch, or you gotta walk out for a meeting and come back, if you are bringing in outside food and beverage, our rough rule of thumb is always it can only be for yourself, i.e., you know, you can't bring in a ton of outside food that's for your entire team. If you're holding a coffee, you know, no one's gonna yell at you. But again, don't bring in mass quantities. That will definitely get flagged if you're bringing in for yourself, like in a backpack or a purse, that's totally okay. Just obviously be mindful. And personal vehicles are unfortunately not allowed. I know it's a big campus, but you'll definitely get your steps in. There's, you know, the trams, the pedicabs to help everyone get around. But we cannot allow in personal ride vehicles. Some fun things at registration that you will get once you check in. We do have campus maps. So if you're like, I'm a little lost, we'll have maps for you at registration. They're kind of like just a little map. Um, so you can find your way around. We've also had these fun things called like Safterbucks. So if you've never come to Safter, once you check in, everyone will get a $10 Safterbucks. You could take that to the swag store in the sponsor hall and redeem it for an item of your choice. They're all the same denominations. You can pick an item. There are ways you can get extra Safterbucks, which we'll talk about later. Um, but that's how you get your swag. So don't lose your Safterbucks. Um, if you want swag, we also do stickers. And maps. Wi-Fi, I'm just calling it out here because sometimes people pre-ask us for what the Wi-Fi password is so they can write it down and share it with their teams. We do have a Wi-Fi sponsor, Justworks, so you'll look for the attendee network that is powered by Justworks, and the password is visitboost211. Very clever. There's also a ton of signs with this, but just if you want to screenshot it or have it handy, here it is for you now. Health and safety. Our policy this year, and again, if you're a previous attendee, we've used to have more stringent policies, so this year's policies don't come fixed. It is an indoor/outdoor event, again, to help promote, you know, better airflow, etc. There's increased sanitation and handwashing. We do have medical personnel on site, and they will be the ones who conduct our temperature checks. So do not come if you have any symptoms of COVID We do ask that, you know, you let us know and we can refund your ticket. If you're not feeling well. And we do have medical-grade temperature detection scanners that again, our team of EMTs come in and run this. So this is like cutting-edge, top-of-the-line stuff, not, you know, little handguns of thermal thermometers that you get at like CVS that you can use at home. These are like, again, event-grade, hospital-grade cameras. So if you do have a temperature, it will be flagged by our EMT team. They will pull you aside if you have a temperature and COVID test you and also talk to you about your symptoms because they are all, again, trained EMTs and nurses. So bear that in mind. Don't come sick if you're not feeling good, or if you start to not feel good during SASGR, definitely skip the days if you're starting to not feel good, and we can help get you a refund. Okay, coming into the campus and the venue, I'm gonna click this for a second to go to the bigger one. Um, it is a big campus. Hopefully you guys have seen our campus map by now, or if it's your first time seeing it, welcome. I'll give you a brief overview, um, here so that we can show you kind of a deep dive. There is a lot going on, but I'll kind of try and break it down by, um, section. So, um, registration— there are, you know, 3 entry points which I called out on the previous slide. So again, um, keep those in mind when you're coming in. Those addresses are listed here in the description. So if you download this campus map— again, these slides are linked in the chat if you came in late. They're also linked on the attendee portal. You can get the map there. Use the map. It's really handy for finding your way around. Registration are the main key points. We also have a few stages. So outside here by the East Registration on Saratoga, you'll see we have our two workshop stages. So both workshop stages are here. If you signed up for a session that's Workshop Stage A or B, those are right next to each other out here in the workshop stages. Our container park and our zip line is out here. So if you've heard us talk about the zip line at all, or seen Jason's tweets about the zip line, it is out here in the container park. Definitely fun to ride it, so I encourage you all to do that if you're not afraid of heights. Stage A is also out here. This is one of our larger stages, and it's also where the big party is. So fun fact, if you're like, where's Cheat Codes gonna be on Thursday? It's gonna be at Stage A. A few things. The hub of this year's event are both of our hangars, so that's why we call them Hangar West and Hangar East. In here is where you're gonna find the majority of things that you're gonna be looking for. So that is things like frame dates are in here, 3 stages are in here. So Stage B Legends as well as Cantina Stage A and B are in these 2 hangars. They are connected. You'll see a bunch of signs for them to go back and forth. Um, so again, that's gonna kind of be everything where you are gonna wanna be. All of our sponsors are in here. The coworking space is in here. The Founders Lounge is in here, which is the founders-only lounge. So this is the new thing we're doing. If you are a founder or CEO, basically it is access controlled because folks for years have been asking us for a way for founders and CEOs to meet one another. So there is a founders-only lounge presented by Roam. Go check it out if you're a founder or CEO. There will be guards at the, guards at the door, you know, nice guards at the door, but you know, so basically gonna look at your badge and see if it says founder or CEO and let you in if you're a founder or CEO only. So that's a fun place to go meet other founders and CEOs. The cantinas are also here. So if you're looking for lunch, coffee, snacks, happy hour, that is in both hangars. Hangar West, Hangar East. The food and wine festival that we're having to kick off with— the pink day one— it's going to be in both hangars. So any of our happy hours are in both hangars. Again, that is the hub collectively of the event this year. So a lot of what you're looking for is going to be in one of these hangars. If you're looking for coat check, it's in the hangar. If you're looking for the mother's room, it's in the hangars. Founders Lounge, coworking space, a place to plug in, coffee, it's in the hangars. So again, if you're looking for something, 99% chance it's in one of the hangars. So definitely try there first. Pro tip, lunch is in there, you know, all that fun stuff. So the hangars are your friends. That, that is our hub. So go there first. We also have a few other new activations this year. I'll call out SaaS Royale is a new Casino activation. I think I have a slide for it later. It is not cash-based. It is Faster Bucks based. So if you do win one of the table games, you can get extra Faster Bucks, which again, you can use at the swag store for extra swag, which is super fun. So it is bragging rights, Faster Bucks only, but totally fun. Like if you're super competitive, I'm sure you'll see me out there at some point playing blackjack or poker. But yeah, you know, like classic table games are gonna be out there, gonna be tons of fun. You can— I know some people are like, I'm gonna go take a meeting after the keynote. So yeah, Saster Royale, it is outside. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Go try your luck. It is in the afternoons, so definitely stop by in one of the afternoons that you're there, or all of the afternoons that you're at Saster. We also have Saster Square Park. So if you're looking for like a place to meet somebody on site that is outside, Saster Square Park is a great way to do that. There's a bunch of picnic tables. It's a great place to actually get some work done outside too. It's shaded. So it's a fun place to be if you need a little break too from being in the hangars. Our VC lounge is also new. So similar to the Founders Lounge, this is for VCs and founders only. So we, you know, we allow all investor ticket types in here. If your badge says investor, if it says, you know, partner at a firm, etc., that kind of thing, like something capital, fine, like any investors are allowed in here, but it is investors, founders, and CEOs only. So similar access, although, you know, VCs can't come to the Founders Lounge, founders can go to the VC Lounge. So yeah, use the VC Lounge if, you know, you're a founder and you're looking for VCs, or on the flip side, if you're an investor on this and you're looking for founders, definitely go to the VC Lounge. We'll also talk about our Meetup VC program if we don't run out of time here. Also, our Plaza Stage is out here. So if you're looking for— if you've got questions on the Plaza Stage, I always love this stage because it is outside. But it's shaded. So again, you kind of get that nice indoor-outdoor feel while you're out here. And there's some really great sessions on that track. So that's where the Plaza Stage is if you've got sessions there. Well, we chatted about a lot of these. I'm going to move on. The other thing I will say, there is a specific sponsor hall layout. And again, I placed the slides in the chat, so hopefully you can load that up. So there's an overall campus map which will show you all of Capra Annual. And then what we have, what we call our sponsor hall map, which specifically just for sponsors, kind of like a zoomed-in version of our campus map. It's got the directory here on the second page. There's obviously a lot of sponsors, so it is two pages, but you can find who you're looking for. So if you know that there is somebody that you want to meet, that will be there for you. And also, I wanted to call out a few things on the sponsor hall map. A lot of our sponsors have fun activations. So if you're looking for like the best swag, the best food, we call out some of them on the slides here. We cannot call out all of them because honestly there are so many good ones. We cannot call them all out. I think I'm gonna have my team make a little scavenger hunt map of some of these. But there's things like, you know, a vendor is doing like custom screen printing tees and tote bags. So if you try to purchase swag and you're like, I need a tote bag to carry some of those. Go see Bender. Secure Frame is doing boba. I always love a good boba. So if you are looking or craving for boba, you know, go to Secure Frame. Google's doing these cool edible cookies if you're having a cookie fix. If you want something a little more healthy, you can hit up Strada for some juice. Our friends at Capchase are going to have ice cream in the afternoon. So again, if you get a little warm and you're like, where can I get a little snacky ice cream? Go visit Capchase. Our friends at SAP have popsicles, so I don't know if you're team popsicle or team ice cream, but we have both through our sponsors. So yeah, anyways, there's a lot of those, though again, I only put a few. We'll make a fun scavenger hunt map, but there's a lot of them, so go do— go visit all the sponsors between both hangars. There's a lot of activations, there's a lot of swag, there's a lot of fun stuff, so definitely go do like a sponsor hall crawl, if you will. Other fun things SASTR is doing: in our hangars, you will find a photo booth. So this will give you like a printed photo strip, um, it does also give you a digital copy. So this is fun if you want to take some photos with your team. Um, we also have a video booth out by Stage A. So this is really fun and something new we're doing for this year. You can record a video for us, um, and you have the chance to be featured in an upcoming SASTR video. So if you've ever seen like our highlight reels that we put together about SASTR Annual, or some of the videos and photos we put together to Market's Astral Annual for next year's. This is your chance to try and be in it. If you want to be in it, go do that. Go do the video booth one of the days. We also, as I said, have a ton and ton of coffee that's sponsored by Mercury this year. It's going to be everywhere, basically in all the hangars, all the buildings, there's going to be coffee. Go to their booth. They're going to have a specialty coffee cart there. It's got, you know, that's where you can find the specialty coffee. So if you're looking for like a mocha, a vanilla latte, an espresso, that's where you're gonna wanna go. Go to their booth. That's where they're gonna have the specialty coffee. There's also gonna be a van activation with Mercury at the back of Stage A. So if you're, you know, stuck in sessions and you need to grab a coffee, there's one there that also has specialty coffee. And most importantly, iced coffee. If you're looking for iced coffee, you've gotta go to their booth or the van. So those are the two places to get iced coffee. That is a pro tip. You will see me there because I love iced coffee. We've talked about our Container Park. This will be a fun outdoor container park. This is new this year for attendees. Definitely encourage you to go hang out there. And again, ride the zipline if you're not afraid of heights. We've talked about the casino. This is open each afternoon. Go win some faster bucks. Try your luck. Even if you don't know how to play these games, it's okay. It's, again, very casual. There's no money involved. It's a great place to learn before you go to Vegas next time. So come have fun there. There's a lot in the agenda, so I'll try and just shout a few callouts. So I do want to shout out that if you're in town early, come pick up your badge early on Tuesday, September 5th. It is technically the day before disaster annual starts, but it is a great way to beat the rush. So come pick up your badge early. It's open from 4 to 8. There's two gates that are gonna be open. You'll also see us directing people. So if you come to the vicinity, you'll know where to go. But we'll have, you know, our registration's open. You can come get your badge early. If you're staying at the Crown Plaza, you can also just get your badge there. So the satellite reg will be open that day from 2 to 6. Make sure though you do bring with those things I mentioned earlier. So, you know, your ID, all that stuff, that still applies to getting your badge early, but highly, highly recommend it because then when you come back day one, you can use the Express Lane right away, which most people won't be using yet. So yeah, you can kind of breeze in the next day. I will say we, you know, try not to have really long lines. It's Astro Annual. There's obviously times where a lot of people come in at once. We try and keep it about 5 minutes or less. Haven't really seen it go up above that unless there's a temperature issue, right? Kind of a health and safety flag. So you can expect between about 5 to 10 minutes as you're picking badge, but it does depend on when you come. If you come early in the morning, literally takes a minute. Um, if you're coming, you have a meeting, definitely come early. You know, there's plenty of spaces to hang out, get coffee, you know, there's lunch every day, then there's happy hour, there's snacks all day, like there's a lot of food on campus. Um, so yeah, anyways, come early. That's a great way to get your badge, um, so you don't get stuck in any lines if there are lines that take a little bit longer, um, as the day kind of progresses because everyone kind of rolls in at 9. 9 is like the, "No, I'll just get there at 9 to 10." Yeah, everyone else is getting here 9 to 10, so come early. It will be a lot easier. And also, sometimes if you catch it early, you can kind of catch the Ubers and Lyfts before they start to surge, because, you know, the later in the day it gets, the more people calling Uber at the same time at 9, the more it's going to surge. So if you come early, it's actually kind of cheaper on the Ubers too, mostly. Broke it there. All right, coming into the first full day of FASTR Annual, our satellite registration will be open at 7:30 this day if you're at the Crown Plaza, and starting at the San Mateo County Events Center at 8 o'clock will be open. So yeah, any, any time after 8, you can come get your badge. Again, we'll be open early if you are here early, the coworking space will be open. You can power up, take some meetings, take some calls, get here early and beat the rush. Formal stuff starts at 10 this day, so the sponsor halls don't open until about 10 or so. The Brain Dates start at about 10:00, so Brain Dates are a great way to get some sessions and meetings in before like the formal content starts, which starts at noon. Great way to do that is to get started with Brain Dates that day, load up your Brain Dates before you get too busy. We also have a fun speakeasy on site. I did not call it out on the map. It's kind of a not so secret, not so hidden speakeasy. We did this last year. We moved it from last year, so if you're looking for it in the same place, it's not there. So yeah, we are gonna visit every year. So yeah, find our new speakeasy. And we've got speakers and content going from 12 to about 4:30 this day. Happy hour starting at 3. And as I said earlier, we're ending day 1 with our Wine and Food Fest on site. So this will be in both the hangars. This will be super fun. We're doing all Napa-only wines. Fun fact, like literally. We've got like Napa-themed foods. So, you know, Anyways, it's gonna be fun. So come to the Food and Wine Fest. It's a great kickoff for the first day. Great chance to meet other attendees and bond with your team. Coming to the second day, badge pickup opens at 8:00 AM this day, goes all the way to 7:30 'cause I do know we have the big party and some people wait for the big party or they come back for the big party. So reg is open fairly late this day. Sponsor halls are open earlier this day. So again, Thursday is our biggest day. Kind of plan accordingly. As you'll see, like, as you build your agenda, Thursday is always our biggest day. There's always like the most people on site on Thursday, the most energy, I would say, around the big party, which is very much a concert. Lots of brain dates, lots of like, you know, sponsors in their element by the second day, lots of really great speakers and content. I can't even name them all, but there's so many good ones on Thursday. And as I said, we go into happy hour starting at about 3:30 PM, and then we go into the big party starting at 5:30. As you all hopefully know, Cheat Codes is playing the big party this year. We do have a crazy good opener as well, so get there early for the big party, get there when it starts. This is gonna be a really fun time. If you think you don't know who Cheat Codes is, listen to them on Spotify or YouTube and you're probably like, "Oh, just kidding, I do know these songs." So we're super excited. Coming up from LA for this. So yeah, it's gonna be a really fun time. I'm really excited about their vibe and their energy. It's gonna be a blast. So see you there. I'll be dancing. And then coming into our final day of Fastly Annual, Friday I will say is our AI day. So like, and our VC day. There is a lot going on Friday. If you guys are snoozing on Friday, you're doing it wrong. So don't snooze on Friday. There's a lot going on. Reg starts at 8, sponsor halls open at 9. Again, speakers and content this day are all AI, VC based. Cutting-edge stuff, right? We packed it all on Friday. We have got the beer garden this day, so we're gonna open up the brewskis in the afternoon, have really great content. Some of our Sashafam favorites are on Friday afternoon. You can tell I'm getting excited, so I'll tone it down. But, um, yeah, don't miss out on Friday. I know some people have been chatting into us like, oh, what's the best time I should leave early on Friday? I'm like, not till content is over. Like, literally, there's really great content all the way through the end of the day. The final happy hour and the wrap party. So don't miss on Friday. It's actually where a lot of people I've heard in previous years on the last day of Annual have a lot of really great meetings and make a lot of really great connections because by that time you've kind of, you know, explored the campus, you've done other things, and it does free you up a bit to meet more people on site. So Friday is kind of a self-power day. Okay, the hardest aspect of Annual, our agenda and speakers. Hopefully by now you've come into our full agenda and speakers, and so what I want I want to show you guys real quick is how to save your seat for sessions. So what you will do is there's a few ways to do this. Oh no, my screenshot. Okay, there, there, there. If you're on desktop, you'll just hit this login button when you're on the agenda page, log in with your ticket number and your email, and then what it will do is it will flip it so that if you're only seeing stars, it means you're not logged in yet. If you see the stars and a seat, That's what you want when you're logged in, but you have to be logged in, right? So that it knows that you're you trying to save your seat for this session and build out your agenda specifically. So then you'll hit the seat button, save your seat, that will build your agenda. I highly, highly recommend you do this. There's a lot of speakers, there's a lot of content. It does allow you to do overlapping sessions. So pro tip, if there's 2 sessions you want at the same time to go see, you can save your seat for both, and when you get on site, then you can decide which one you want to go to, but that way you have it more narrowed down. Of the two that you wanna see versus like all the sessions that are going on at that time. The other way you can do this is on the mobile app. So I find it easier to do it on the mobile app. I will say I love the mobile app personally. I told this to all of our sponsors, so sorry if you're a sponsor hearing this again. This is honestly what I use when I'm on something, just like what's going on at any given time. I use our mobile app. I'm not like, you know, in a Google Sheet, whatever. We do have a lot of Google Sheets on like production, run a shows, AV call times and literally how many, like, chairs are on a stage at one time. I've got access to all that, but honestly, I use the mobile app. It is the best way to do it so I can see what's open, what's going on, where are people right now, who's on stage at the moment. Get the SASTR Events app. You can get it on iPhone, you can get it on Google Play Store, Android, whatever. Um, download it. You can scan that QR code, it'll take you to it. Um, just look for SASTR Events. If you are a previous attendee, you may need to log out and log back in to add your event. But again, highly recommend you use the SaaStr Events app. I personally use it all the time. I use it a lot on site, and it is a great way to build your agenda. It makes it super easy because once you log in the first time, then your info is just like, you know, saved on the app. It's really easy to pull up your agenda. It's got all your ticket details on it and also has Braindate and Chat, which I'm about to chat about. So Get the app. Definitely handy. It is your best friend, honestly, during DASDR. I use it a lot. One thing new we're doing this year, so we'll talk about Brain Dates in a second, which is also on the app and our main networking platform, but something new we're doing this year to help connect attendees, because so many of you last year were like, we want to chat with each other, meet with one another, kind of like get to know folks outside of just the Brain Dates, which has been like our core mentorship and networking platforms. But this year with our friends at Expensify, we are bringing Expensify Chat to all of Fast Free Annual, which is super exciting. It is a really powerful chat platform. You can already get in it. There are some people already in it. So if you're like, ah, it's too early to get in there, I'm like, there's already attendees in it. So definitely download the app, get yourself into the chat. It's a great way. There's basically a few overarching rooms. If you think about like how Slack has a general room, we have a social room and an announce room, which are 2 main rooms for all attendees. We'll drop links into them in a follow-up email here. It's also in the email that went out last week. If you look that up, it's in there too. It's also linked in the app. So that's why I mentioned the mobile app. If you download the mobile app, you'll see it on the home page. It'll say like, take me to chat. It'll take you to our main room. There's also going to be while you're on site, you'll see that there are rooms per session. This is going to be a great way to engage the speakers, the speaker teams with other attendees who are sitting in the same session as you. Definitely utilize the chat. You're gonna see it everywhere at SouthRay Annual. All the QR codes are gonna be like plastered around the event, so you'll see it a lot. Good to get on it now so that you're an early adopter to the chat. Um, but yeah, anyways, highly recommend you do this. There's already people on there starting to like chime in and be like, hey, who wants to meet up? Like, where are you guys coming in from? So yeah, anyways, get on the chat. Super great way to interact with other attendees, and definitely keep an eye out while you're on site of those different chat rooms for each session as you go into your sessions. Those will be a great way to meet folks as well as, you know, kind of the general chat rooms we have for the entirety of the event. Also, if you have any questions, you can ask them in the chat. We've got our team on there, um, and people can help point you to the right place. Also, on-site pro tip, we do have info desks on site, so you'll see them. You'll see some folks that are roaming around in like SAS shirts. If you need help at any time, you know, just ask anybody in a staff shirt. They can point you in the right direction. So yeah, chat, use the chat. This is what it looks like. Again, you can come say hello. There's already some folks in there. I'd love you to say hi to me. So if you don't know already, I am doing a field guide on day 1 of Sassafras Angels to help kick us off. Again, help you get the lay of the land. You're here, so you should definitely go to that too. I'll chat up a little bit more about what we're doing on Friday today. So yeah, come say hi to me on my field guide Sassafras Chat app. See you there. Um, okay, the other thing that's in the app that we are also doing at SaaStr Annual, but it's handy to do on the app, are our Brain Dates. So Brain Dates are our main, like, networking and mentorship platform. These are one-on-one and group Brain Dates. So if you're new to SaaStr, again, this is a great way to meet fellow attendees, sponsors, speakers, a lot of our speakers, a lot of investors are doing this. So there's a lot of really great folks on Braindates, you should definitely plan on booking your Braindates before you arrive. So now is a good time to pay attention to Braindates. So if you've not yet, you would basically click these links here or again go to the attendee portal. The first time you're going to get hit with this screen to log into Braindates and find your conversations. You do need to log in with the same email that your ticket is under. So sometimes we've had some folks try and they're like, I can't get in. It's like, your ticket might have been under a personal email versus, you know, a work email or that kind of thing. So just do bear that in mind. Also, if you just bought a ticket, it does take about 10 minutes or so to sync up. So give it about 10 minutes before you log into BrainAid. For everyone else, if you're having trouble, you can reach out to, you know, the team if you feel like that's not you and you can't get in. But basically, you would log into BrainAid the first time, set your password, and then it will let you in to the app. Basically where it's going to show you by default is what we call the topic marketplace. So this is where you can come in and see all the topics that have already been posted for Brain Dates. And you can see that they're tagged. So they're, if it's tagged by a group, that's the size of a Brain Date. A group is for 5 people. If it's tagged one-on-one like this one is, that is obviously a one-to-one. So it'd be like you and the host. So I recommend you join some existing Brain Dates, especially if you're newer and you don't feel comfortable hosting a Brain Date, definitely fill up your schedule by joining Brain Dates. There are different ones here. There are also different ones in size. So there's this thing called Super Brain Dates. You'll see some of these have like 100 spots in a Super. Some of them have up to 30 or 50 people in a Super Brain Date. So there are bigger like micro sessions in here. Definitely recommend joining those as well. A great way to sort if you're newer to Brain Dates or if you're like, there are literally 300 topics in here, like how do I find what I'm looking for? Is you can see what's trending, right? So like by default, it's kind of showing me what's trending trending so far. No surprise that venture capital and product-led growth are trending. Not surprised at all. You can click one of those and see what people are saying about PLG, right? So there's 14 topics already. You could join one of these topics on PLG if you want to learn more. Or if you wanted to meet investors, you know, you could hit venture capital, see what folks are taking meetings. Literally, I did not, you know, pre-seed this. I just loaded this up live in real time. And you can see there are a few VCs here looking to meet founders. So if you're a founder, like, meet, you know, meet Person Capital. Yeah, go do that. That is a great way to meet investors. Also sign up for our Meet a VC program, which we'll chat about next. That's a great way to find topics. If you don't see your topics trending, but you want to, you know, search for something like marketing or sales, you can also just type it into the search bar. You'll see, you know, there's 40 on kind of markets and marketing. But yeah, again, great way to do that is there. Highly recommend you join Brain Dates. We do have a way to host a Brain Date. So if you want to host a Brain Date, if you have a topic you want to share about, you would hit this new topic button. You would basically choose what kind of Brain Date you wanted. So like, are you doing an AMA? Are you doing a brainstorm? Is there something you need help on? Are you doing an open discussion? Put in your topic, basically pick a time and post it. I will say this process is moderated. So we do that for a number of reasons. The number one reason being in the past, we've had a lot of AEs and SDRs just post like, ask me about my product. That's not a Brain Date, dude. Brain Dates are meant to be thought leadership, things you want to share, things you want to learn about, right? If you want to learn about PLG, email marketing, email deliverability, like get super niche on it. Like that's the whole point of Brain Dates is to get super niche on it. Really do a deep dive. That's what Brain Dates are for. So they are moderated. So when you post your topic, it's not that it will post to the marketplace that I just showed you right away. It will go to our speakers team who will review it and post the best topics. They can give you some guidance if you post a topic that's kind of outside of the bounds of our submission guidelines, etc. I will say too, for folks who already have topics live, but maybe no one has joined your Brain Date yet, we do sometimes what I call prune Brain Dates if they are sitting empty. So just because your topic is approved does not mean attendees will join. Obviously it's gotta be, you know, a great topic that people will wanna learn from. Think of it as a micro session. I cannot stress this enough. If you're gonna host a Brain Date, it is work. So be prepared to put in that work. You know, a lot of people make slides, they just show 'em on their laptop, or they have like very specific discussion points they wanna go over with their group or their one-on-one. Again, it is work. So if you don't want to put in that work to host a micro session, join an existing Brain Date so that you're still getting all that learning and having somebody put the onus on somebody else, you know, to come up with the topic and come up with all the points for it. But again, if you're going to do— if you're going to host a Brain Date, it is a micro session. So you do need to like actually put together stuff for your Brain Date and not just show up because then there'll be 4 people just kind of staring at you like, What is your braindate about? Yeah, it's a micro-session. Treat it that way, please. If you're not ready for that, definitely join a lot of braindates. As you can see, there are so many already in the platform. Just fill up your, fill up your schedule with existing braindates. If you're new, definitely recommend joining existing braindates versus hosting one. I posted one in the past. They are work, right? So like, I know from experience it is work to put together like literally like micro-slides and a topic. But they are really great to meet people, so just bear that in mind. And if your groups do happen to sit empty, our speaker team will likely reach out, you know, in the few days leading up to the event, which is kind of now, to either submit a new topic, or if your topic is too repetitive, they will again kind of keep moderating that all the way through the live event and during the show days. So keep that in mind. I do love free dates for meeting folks. But yeah, they're micro sessions. So you're going to host one, put in the rep. Um, if not, definitely join an existing one so you can still learn something new and meet really great folks while you're at Sapphire. Either way, do at least one brain date. Um, I've never had somebody have a bad experience with them when they do them. That's a great way to meet folks. Um, when you're on site, the other thing you should do is apply for a Meet a VC program, especially because the submissions are closing. So whether you're a founder or an investor, this is a great way to meet one another. So this is a dedicated program we do each year. If you are a founder or investor, there's kind of two separate links, but either way, go to meetabc.com. Really easy. Meetabc.com. Yes, we bought the domain. And you would basically just apply via this link. So I'm going to click on the one for founders again. MeetAPC.com, made it really simple for you guys. You come in here and basically submit your information. So again, this is a little bit of work, you're gonna have to submit some of your company's information. This is only going to investors and our team, so it's not going to be posted on the internet if you're worried about that. But it's going to ask you questions like, you know, your MRR, your ARR, your growth rate, some of your funding history. And again, this all goes to investors. We've had people literally get funded through this program in addition to Brain Dates. So highly recommend this if you are looking for investor meetings during annual. These submissions are closing the 31st, so you got 2 days. Do it now after this call, or do it during while I'm talking, that's fine. MeetABC.com, submit now. Kind of a similar form for our investors. You can also apply at this link if you haven't yet already. And, you know, That's kind of, it'll be the flip side of this form. So like, you know, who are you wanting to meet? What are you looking to invest in, et cetera? That's Meet ABC. Okay, final thoughts for me and final pro tips, and then I'll move on. I think there's just a few questions that I can help answer, but if we haven't gotten to it, definitely drop it into the Q&A or the chat. It is a lot, so pace yourself, right? There's 3 days, there is a free day if you come to registration early. The whole campus is 40 acres. There's a lot to do, right? Between everything I pointed out on the campus map, going to sessions, doing Brain Dates, going to happy hours, talking to the sponsors, meeting other people at SASS or that you already know are going. There's a lot to do and it does like breeze by. So pace yourself. You know, I definitely recommend planning out your schedule. So if you haven't yet, again, download the mobile app, start chatting. Start picking your sessions. It does make it a lot easier, so it's more manageable when you show up versus trying to do it all last minute as you get here. Another pro tip is there are a lot, a lot— I'm gonna put this in the chat— there are a lot of side events and after parties. We tried to make a list of all of them. This is not even all of them. There's like more than this. So yeah, there is a lot of side events and evening events. I just dropped this link in the chat if you want to go to some of these. I know some of our attendees like to utilize these as, again, other ways to meet some of our really great sponsors and partners and fellow attendees. There are so like many of these, like, oh, that's already sick. That's not even the first day. Like, this is the pre-day. Like, people are literally having parties on day zero, Tuesday, which is the night before. There are sick parties the night before annual actually officially starts. The day of, there's a bunch of afterparties after like the Food and Wine Fest. These are really great, and some of these are like really close to get to too, which I know people try to do it kind of nearby. Some of, again, if you want to go to any of these, definitely sign up and go talk to these sponsors during the day. Some of them I know have shuttles for some of their parties, so go talk to these sponsors during the day if you go to their parties. Some of them will have that. Storyblocks literally has a boat, so if you're into that, there's a boat. There's Thursday parties, there's Friday parties, there's a lot of after parties. So again, pro tip, pace yourself. But there are a lot of offsite parties happening as well if you want to utilize those. And yes, it is a 40-acre campus. So again, highly recommend you pace yourself and explore it all, right? You don't have to explore it all in one day. You can, you know, spend the day in Saskatoon Park one day, spend the next day in the cantina or the coworking space, kind of pop back and forth between spaces. I know a lot of people kind of like find an area that they kind of like, each their own, but there are a lot of spaces around Saskatoon Annual, so at some point, you know, explore the whole campus as best you can in between content and sessions. And definitely do sign up for those content and sessions. That is the heart of Saskatoon Annual. There's a lot of really great speakers. Really great folks coming in for this year, super tactical sessions. So there's a lot to learn from there. So, all right. With that, I'm just going to use the final few minutes for Q&A. Thanks for hanging with me for this long. I know this is a lot of info for SAS JOURNAL, but if you're listening to this or watching this, you'll definitely be set up for a great event this year. OK. A few people are asking for the deck and the recording, so let me— get out of full screen. The deck is— I'm going to share this. Anyone with the link? Okay, I'm going to put this into the chat one more time here. We'll also be emailing this out to all Thaftor annual attendees, so hopefully you guys have that. I see you guys popping in, so hopefully you have that in the chat now. In terms of recording, so that will be on our Thaftor YouTube channel. You can see it's literally live streaming. You can come here if you need to send this to anyone, or if there's something I chatted too quickly about you want to go back to, that is all there. There's a few folks asking about parking. If we haven't heard back yet, should we try again? Parking is being distributed. We did get a lot of requests, so it may be that we haven't gotten to you yet. Again, you can email our team. Team, if you're unsure if you should have gotten one, or maybe we didn't get your submission, small chance, you can email us at annual@saftrinc.com. Okay, there's a few other questions here I want to go to. Back to my Q&A slide. A definite recording, okay, we answered those. Does the VC lounge allow angel investors and other types of investment firms? It does, as long as your badge says that you're an investor. If it doesn't, then you may have a hard time getting in. So it is based on job title. So keep that in mind. You can always adjust as needed. Someone else has said, I've applied for the Meet a VC program as the founder but didn't receive any confirmation. So yeah, I mean, basically, if you got to the like flash screen that said thanks for registering for Meet the VC. It is obviously not guaranteed that you will meet with investors. This is just like a really good chance to get in front of all of them. We send it to a wide network of investors that are coming to SaaStr Annual to the show. They will reach out to you pretty much if they want to meet with you in the VC lounge. Again, we can't guarantee it. Sometimes some companies get more meetings than others, but it's a great way to at least get exposure to all those investors that are coming to Fast-Track Annual. I'll give it one more minute for any last questions. Hopefully this is all super helpful. Just final thoughts again, hope you guys are excited. Definitely pack layers, pack for like fun being inside, outside while you're here. Wear very comfortable shoes. The dress code is business casual, so You know, you do not need to fully suit up if you do not want to. We have had folks definitely suit up and dress up very fancy, but again, yeah, it's mostly business casual since it is indoor/outdoor and there is grass. So for my ladies out there wearing heels or anyone wearing heels, grass equals sinkage. So maybe don't wear heels, like wear wedges if you want the height so that you don't sink into the grass because there is Autographs. Um, bear that in mind too. Um, okay, with that, um, if you guys again have any other questions, you can email us annual@safeterrain.com. We're happy to help you out. Um, other pro tip, like if you get here and then you need help, you can look for our help desk, um, any of our info desks. Again, anyone, a staff teacher can get you to the right place if they can't answer your question. Um, and have fun, like build your schedule, get excited to come see these speakers and this content. It's gonna be a really great SAFTER annual. We do try and do like different and new things. So even if you are a returning attendee, it's always gonna be something new to explore at SAFTER. And we will see you guys next week. We'll see you soon.