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

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

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

Yep, that is correct. So, yeah, cool. The shuttle's great. We've got, I think the Times might be on your closet out on here somewhere. But yeah, so if you're staying at Crown Plaza, which I know is currently sold out. There are nearby hotels that are not sold out that are walkable too. And to David's point, you could grab the, the shuttle that we have running there. The hours are pretty much like the hours you would need to be for a sponsor. So it's Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, pretty much like seven in the morning until like eight o' clock at night. So it runs, you know, fairly early to get there early and then it runs really late if you're like the last person leaving the annual. So that's a good idea. If you, if you're, if you're not at Crown though, I, you know, and you're staying nearby maybe 10 minutes away from the San Mateo County Event center, again, highly recommend you request parking. It's first come, first serve. It's a very massive lot that we haven't had an issue with us like running out of parking. But there's, you know, if we do, we'll direct you to the overflow at Crown Plaza to grab the shuttle. But basically if you request right now, you'll get one because there's still parking spaces available. If you request a parking. I just dropped the slide link in the chat. You guys can click that request parking. It's also just on faster annual2023.com if you go to the attendee portal, request parking. Honestly, I like this idea because you know you're gonna go more places than you probably think you're gonna go, right. It's a massive 40 acre property and because it's so massive, it's actually a little bit, maybe harder than something like a Moscone per se where like, you know, there's like Starbucks or Target or whatever that's walkable. Like there is a Starbucks that's walkable, but it's like a 20 minute walk. Right. So it's like you'd have to factor that in of timing of like it's not just, I'm going to bop across the like streets.

We're going to have lots of coffee too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's a lot of questions.

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

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

Okay, bag rules for the event, bringing in backpacks, laptops, no issue, right?

Okay, that's a great question actually jumping off of what I just said. There are no bag rules for the event. Right. So you can bring laptop, backpacks, etc. I do want to call out on, we do have a coat check, right. It's not storage, it's a coat check. So they're not going to store like you know, 20 boxes for you. Again, that's got to go through Freeman. But there is a coat check. So like if you've got, you know, a backpack and a purse or a backpack and a laptop briefcase, then you can store one of your bags at coat check on site. So great question there. I know there's a few other questions on the kit here. If you request an extra cabinet, can you have it branded? Lisa, I'd love to answer you in real time. You'd have to set this out with Freeman. I don't know when you would have requested this extra cabinet. So I would definitely ask via the portal.

Right?

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

Yes, you could write. It has the HDMI cord. You just need to like have something that can connect into it. Right. If you want to connect a laptop, right. So sometimes you need that dongle. There is a USB port on the TVs that just confirm that so you can connect directly in there. I like to have options, right. Because for me things I just have trouble with devices and getting them connected. You know, I need my 13 year old kid to do it for me. So anyway I would have some options on that and bring extra, you know, make sure you bring that dongle or whatnot.

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

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

Yeah, Roku fire St. You know, I think fire sticks are like 20 bucks on Amazon. Same, same idea, right? Maybe they're on an Apple TV but it's like 20 bucks on Amazon. You can get one on prime today and that will help you control, you know, what's on the monitor from your laptop without leave a device there if you don't want to do that. So we've seen people do that a lot more now.

Okay, cool.

Okay. Can you still hear me? Yes.

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

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

So Amelia, just to confirm if you want the hard line email sponsor success, there's no link for that one, right?

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

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

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

Anyways, yeah, Brain dates. There's still an opportunity to sponsor our Brain date lounge. I really like this one because it really aligns your brand with thought leadership. Right. I mean, I think we hosted over a thousand brain dates at Saster last year. If I think about what that is. More. Okay, so if it's a thousand minimum and the average one has what, two and a half, three people?

Yeah.

Well, even if it's two, that's 2,000 people and it's more. So that's a lot of people that are getting there. Seeing your brand at Braid Dance, associating your brand with thought leadership at the tables you meet at, you'd have branding picture, a little QR code there. Something to, you know, drive awareness and engagement. So it's a really great one. I'm a big fan.

Yep.

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

200? Yeah. But I will say, like a lot of them are. Are ringers. Right? Like you got, you know, David Sachs, Michael Cybel from Y Combinator, some of the partners from Bessemer, you know, Jack from Lattice, like Mirror, like the CRO of Miro. Like there are some. I agree. I think it might be our best lineup, you know, in terms of like logos and company and familiarity. We brought back some fan favorites this year. Like, I think Meta is coming back now for like Friday. It's like a cool closing. Just speaking.

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

There's a question here. Do sponsors have access to the lounges? So there are two lounges. I don't know if I can just flip back to the campus map.

Sure.

The VIP lounge is the VC lounge. Actually, let me try and flip back to it if I can get out of my screen share. It's a good question. I know we didn't talk about the EVC today. We can talk about that. Next week. But let me just pull up map here. So yeah, these are the rooms that David is chatting about. Right. So the speaker green room is only open to speakers. You have to be a speaker. There's security checks. So not like there's a bouncer but there's kind of a bouncer. So like if you're not a speaker on the list, you can't get into the speaker green room. Trust us, it's better this way unless you're the sponsor. And then next to it is the VC Lounge. So this is where it's open for VCs and founders to host meetings. Again we have a fair amount of investors who come all three days of faster to make new investments. So these are the two rooms David is speaking of for sponsors. Like if you're looking for a space to host a meeting, a co working space is a great space that's already in one of the hangars. If you're a founder or CEO you could use the founders lounge. This is a new area that we added in one of the other hangars. Sasha Square park has a lot of really great places to sit. Again if you want to take a meeting outside, there's a lot of great places to sit out there. And then what we'll share more next week is there is an executive briefing center. This is going to be first come, first serve and I know a lot of people have been asking about this. So this is a bookable meeting space but I think that's what's going to go fast, right? It's free and it's open to sponsors but there's only so many slots in the CBC across the three days. So I'm not saying please, I'm not saying to bombard us now with like your request like I might, we might ignore them. They do need to formally be in the page that we're going to launch next week to all of you, but I imagine that's going to go fast and we're probably going to have to limit folks to the amount of meetings that they can book out in the ebc just because I know everyone's looking for like a bookable meeting space. Again it's a 40 acre property. You do not have to meet people in the ebc. Honestly too like it might feel the same as your booth because it's just a bookable meeting space. Right. I've known people to take meetings outside. It's actually a lot nicer. Or in the cantina. Right. That's a huge space. It's already got food, it's got snacks, there's two cantinas. There's two cantinas, yeah. Like you can take a meeting and those speakeasy, that's a cool place to go. You know the founders lounge if, if you have the access for it in the container part, there's going to be space. Again recommend taking a meeting outside. Trust me, I think the prospects actually like a better do because then you're not, you know, always inside. I know it's going to probably be a little bit warm those days but again massive 40 acre campus so there's a lot of spaces to meet there with that. I know we are sadly at the top of the hour so we might have to end on those teases of activations but if you guys have any further questions please again reach out to me. David, the sponsor Success team. I know we've been working fast to answer your guys questions as fast as we can and with that we will see you guys all again next week. I know this has been very informative and long sometimes so thanks for, for coming back each week and we'll see you all next Thursday.

Bye everyone.