SaaStr Insider LIVE : ~60 DAYS TO SAASTR ANNUAL

Live Saster Insider Sponsor webinar to go through. Just like the latest reminders, we're about 60 days out from Sastra Annual now, so yeah, we wanted to go through kind of the latest and greatest for everyone and just, you know, give you the latest info of what you need to know. So without further ado, I'll go ahead and share my screen. If you guys have any questions as we go along and we don't cover something you're interested in or have a question about, just drop it into the I think either the chat or the Q and A and then we'll do questions towards the end. So. All right. Very cool. All right. Yeah, as mentioned, we've got about 60 days to go to Saster Annual. We have this insider's guide which I'll drop into the chat. For those that are watching on the Zoom. If you're on the sponsor webinar portal or sponsor portal and watching this later, we will add this slide deck there as well. But for those who are in the live Zoom room, this is how you can follow along and also reference this later. And we'll keep this updated from week to week. So you'll see we just updated it here for today's so. All right, cool. Yeah, I said hopefully by now you all know like the location and date since it is coming up. I do mention two addresses here just because one is there are two entrances to the San Mateo County Event center if you ever get confused. Basically the one to know is the top one for sponsors, 1346 Saratoga Drive. That's because folks like Freeman and like Exhibitor Services will be there. So if you're bringing things in or if you end up having an activation and you've got vendors that bring things in, this will be the address for you guys to know and utilize. In terms of like leaving at the end of each day you can use either address for pick up a drop off. If you're utilizing rideshare, just make sure you know that you use the address that you want. Otherwise it kind of defaults to one or the other. So just something to pay attention to and if at all we don't again, we don't cover something here. If you're watching this later on a replay, if you have a question that comes up, you can reach out to us on any of these points of contact events, castrate being the main one, but the rest of us are here as well to help support coming into our timeline. I'll skip kind of what's already been done, but I know we do have a few newer sponsors. So basically if you're just signed in the like the last week or so and you're catching up on everything, the main thing for you to do will be to log into the sponsor portal, get access to that for whoever needs it for yourself and your team, upload your logos, things like your address. There's a few tasks like that that maybe take 10 minutes once you first get into the platform. And then just know that we are also in the midst of sponsor booth selection and activation selection there upcoming deadlines, which is more so what we're focused on today. Just in terms of reminders, we did do a sponsor speaker overview last week. So if you're a sponsor that has content that recording is on YouTube and I believe linked to the portal, we can send it to you should you need. Sponsor speaker slides were originally due this Friday. So just a note here, we did push this back out a week since I know it took like a little bit of extra time with the speakers team to maybe get all your speakers and content confirmed. So just in light of that we pushed it back a week. So basically your slides and their first drafts are due end of the month ideally also. So that's a big deadline coming up if you do have content. Next big deadline that is applicable to everyone here will be that the booth graphics are due on Tuesday, April 1st. So you've got about you know, week and a half ish built in. Please be sure your artwork is uploaded to the sponsor portal. I'll show you where to go do that. If not, there are some late fees that may be applicable. So obviously as we're getting closer, we'll be monitoring who's turning in their booth graphics. You know, we'll be in constant communication with those that we're looking for to turn in on the day of and just to help really circumvent any fees that may be applicable, I know you guys probably don't want to pay them and we know that you don't want to. So we will make sure you get a bunch of reminders between now and then. And if you have any questions on the booth designs, we'll cover it again today. Just as like a high level overview, but something to keep of note there. So yeah, once you are ready to upload your booth graphics, if you come into the task list on the sponsor portal, if you're the main person or if you're not the main person, that's okay. And then basically you'll use this link here to submit your booth graphics. This Will take you to the Saster Dropbox and you'll see it literally looks like this, that I sent you this request and you can add your files here. We do it this way because the sponsor portal has like a file limit upload and this doesn't. So obviously booth graphics usually end up being a pretty big file. But yeah, you can upload them here. We get a notification on the events team too once you upload them, which is quite nice. So yeah, just upload them there. It's as easy as that. You can zip folder it all together. You can do separate files. I've seen a few people submit already. Really? Either way is fine. Zip files are always easier if you put it all in a folder. But obviously we know who all the sponsors are, so we'll suss out whose graphics are whose. So that's the next big deadline. Obviously a lot of our communications from now in the next week and a half, two weeks is going to be around those slides and graphics being due afterwards. Right. Kind of starting in April we'll get into like nitty gritty, like just pre prep things. Like we'll do a dedicated webinar for networking. We'll walk you through things like shipping, right. If you want to start shipping things and you can do these things now, they're all in the sponsor portal for you, so you can definitely self serve. If you're like, I'm ready to start shipping my swag, you could definitely go in there and do this. Now we just like to do this timeline so that you're not all bombarded at once with hey, you know, we've got to do our, you know, speaker slides. If you've got content and you've got to do your graphics and you're starting to register your teams and probably book their travel, right. It's kind of a lot at once. So we try and space it out so that you're. By the time you get to annual, you've got everything done and checked off there. So just a quick reminder on some to do's if you haven't done these already, if you do have any outstanding tasks in the sponsor portal, now's a good time to do them. You'll see there is a task to upload your booth graphics. So you'll see that for most of you, like we said, they're due. Booth selection. I know this is a question that comes up a lot lately, like have I, did I miss booth selection? Have I been assigned a booth? Booth selection is kind of a slower process at the start. Just because we do, we go strictly in order of level and contract signature date. So for things like the diamonds and platinums who are still choosing now, it does take a bit longer because we do one at a time. It's very custom. It's also part of like the activation conversation they have by level. So, yeah, there's kind of a lot that goes into the more Premier booths. So just something to note there. You've not missed anything. We're actually almost on the super goals now, so I assume by Monday we will start the Super Gold. That usually goes a little bit faster. I know the super goals and goals historically have gone a lot faster. People tend to kind of know what they want. It's a little bit more straightforward because it's a somewhat smaller footprint. So yeah, that typically goes faster and that usually could take, you know, a week, week and a half and then we go on to goals. So you haven't missed anything yet if you're in those two levels. Thanks for being patient. I know that's the majority of you guys. Yeah, the premier sponsors do end up just taking a while sometimes. So, yeah, thanks for hanging in there on that. But yeah, you haven't missed anything yet. If you do see things like forms on the sponsored portal or shipping that asks for your booth number and you don't have one yet, you could just put your sponsor name, we'll match it up for on the back end before you know, it's closer to annual. We give Freeman and all of our points of contacts. Your booth number is on like a master list. So not to worry if you don't have it yet. But you do want to start shipping or ordering AV or electrical. Just put your sponsor name. All good. Activation selection process. Very similar to boost selection. You know, they go in the same order. So I know some of you have reached out on maybe you've looked at the deck. I know a few people have looked at the deck and maybe came up with an idea that wasn't in the deck. I think that's great. There's a few of you done that already and that's awesome. Just reach out to events. You know, we can help you with either. You know, some people are bringing in their own vendors, others were trying to help source vendors. So if you see that deck and you're like, you know, I know it's not my turn to choose yet, but I kind of have an idea for what I want to do. Just reach out to us so we can kick off that process. Other things to kind of start thinking about now again, not to bombard you guys all, but just in the back of your mind, start thinking about things like swag. Right? Right. Some production times I know are longer than others just depending on the item. And so don't be surprised if you see some things that take, you know, maybe a couple weeks versus some things like shirts. I know you can often get like in a couple days depending on who you go through. And sometimes they, they mark it up, but you can get it. So, you know, just bear that in mind if you want to get things like, I know socks are super popular. We do them too. They do take a bit longer. Right. Because they're fully custom. It's a bit more of a labor intensive process to get socks. Socks randomly take a little bit longer. So things like that. You just may want to be cognizant of any upcoming deadlines. So you hopefully don't have to pay any like rush fees on your swag registering your team. So you should all have your codes from the Saster Events production team. You don't have to register your teams yet if you don't want to, but it is, I do think it's handy because you start to get those attending emails, you can pick your sessions to kind of work around. So if you want to make a boost schedule, it's kind of nice to have your team pick their sessions already. I'll say too, I'll say this more so at the beginning of April, but if you register your team, that's the way that you'll be able to get into the networking as a sponsor. So it's always good to register your teams, you know, now that you guys have your codes, if you know who's already coming that way, the minute we do the networking release, you guys are able to get into that. Speaking of which, a little bit out of order, but we'll be doing a dedicated, we'll be using one of these Thursday webinars on Thursday, April 10 to go through the networking. So if you've been a prior sponsor, there are some things that are similar, but there's also some things that are different. This year we've, we've improved a lot of the networking based on a lot of the feedback from September. Basically sprinted to get this all done before May, but some good improvements that we're excited to show you guys. So make sure you come to that webinar. We'll explain it. All right. But the way you'll get access is you just need to be registered on your sponsor code because we sync everything over from our registration side and ticketing side. So yeah, make sure you Register prior to April 10th so that you know you're in the system, you're in the platform if you want to be one of the first people in networking, which we do recommend, obviously. Right. Yeah. Booking travel accommodations. That's hyperlinked to our room block. So if you want to be at the room block that also has the shuttle, that's the one. I know a few different hotels in the areas that we don't have formal room blocks for are either starting to fill out or are already sold out. Things like the Crown Plaza I think doesn't have any rooms. It's been historically a saster hotel block. A few others, I think the garden van or something has a lot of availability. So just be mindful of that. Right. Like this one will probably, probably fill up in the next week or two as well, I imagine. So again, I don't know if it's maybe outside your budget just because it is closer, but it is literally like 10, 5 to 10 minutes from the menu. Probably 10 minutes if you take the shuttle. So super convenient there upcoming, just so you guys know and to put it on your radar, you know, again in April we'll walk you through the process for inviting your customers and prospects to SAS re annual through our customer guest pass program lead retrieval. We'll go through all that when it gets closer. But really we want to throw on your radar this networking webinar on April 10th in which we'll walk you through all the networking options. That way you have more than a. You basically have a little bit more than a month there to get a jump start on networking. Who do you want to meet? Everything like that, which would be great. We've put some quick links here in the deck, but basically this links you back to the sponsor portal. So hopefully you guys are super familiar with this. But just at a glance I just want to call out one thing in the resources section. We update this resources section fairly frequently. We actually just added a bunch of stuff in the last 48 hours. So there's a few things in here that you may want to take a look at. If you just haven't gone into the resources lately. FAQs. I would also say like if you haven't read through those, good to go through. I think just it's very good, like high level information on being a sponsor. I always find it helpful to go through those. We do cover a lot of that on these webinars but kind of staggered. So nice to go through those FAQs, majority of what I want to go through. And I want to be mindful of time because I know the last webinar was fairly long booth specs. Again, just as a reminder here, as you're starting to design your booths before April 1, there's a few different resources you can use together to make it a little bit easier when you're designing your booth. So the first, I'm just going to flip to the resources section back here. So there's kind of three things on this page that you can do. So one, we did just add Adobe Illustrator templates. This was something that I know a few sponsors asked us for last year, but kind of after they submitted their booth. So what we did this year is we have added Illustrator templates. If your team, if your design team uses Illustrator, it's really easy. I helped, you know, kind of go through all the templates. They're so easy to understand. Like, I can probably show you guys one because I have Illustrator. Just give me a second, I will bring up a super gold. I'll show you what I mean by how easy they are. Stop sharing that window and I'll share. Let me just get it open and I'll share the template. Illustrator is a little bit of a beefy software tool. Okay, there it goes. All right, let me share this screen. All right, so if you're like, oh, I've already maybe started my booth graphics. This is a super goal. So I'm going to zoom in, but you're like, oh, maybe I'll actually move through the template. The nice thing is, if you're, if your design team already is using Illustrator, trust me, it's easy for them. I need to update mine. But it's easy for them to plop over to this because they can basically take the elements and drop them into this template. Just make sure it's to the right scale. This has all the bleed lines this has. So basically this is the back wall. So when I'm looking at it, let me just pause my share so I can show you guys side by side with the render and that will probably make the most sense for folks. And again, you can share this part of the webinar with your team. I think I started at around the 15 minute mark on this, so that would be a good thing to share. I'll share my whole screen here since it needs a little bit of back and forth. Okay. Sharing the whole thing. Yeah, maybe no desktop. Okay, now I'm screen sharing. Okay, so I'm using a super gold. So I'm here now on the boost specs. So if you haven't been to this area yet of the portal, I just clicked on these boost specs. You can scroll down. And these are what we call our at a glance renders. I find them really nice because in context, right when you're looking at this, this is a flat file, which, if you're a designer, maybe is easier to understand, but I think for regular people is somewhat harder. I like to use these two in tandem. You know, Sasha does design a lot of art and graphics for Sasha Annual ourselves. Like, we. We do a lot of walls and stages, and this is how we do it. We always do a 3D render, and then we do the flat 2D file, if you will, in Illustrator. It's just easier to see at a glance, like, what you're looking at. Right. So I'm going to pull these side by side as best I can. Yeah, that works better. Okay. This window a little smaller. Try and close these guys out. Yeah, One second. All right, cool. All right, so now you can see more. So what I mean, just do this side by side. Perfect. So if you're looking at a super gold, and you give this template, I'll zoom out here to your designer so you'll see a few things, and this will be true of all levels. Right. The I. I use super gold because it's our most popular level. So hopefully this covers most of you. But, okay, so the A panel is the back wall. So that's the A panel that matches up on here. You can see they've already put a pink of things that are going to be covered. Right. So when you're designing, you're probably like, oh, sometimes I've seen sponsors, like, design this entire wall, like, and the table covers a graphic or the, you know, the monitor covers a graphic, or they put a tagline here. But you really should put it on the C1 and C2 panel. That's why these templates are so easy, because when you load them up, you can see that we've already outlined for you what's going to get covered. Right. And basically, these are going to be the panels that cover it. So, again, super helpful context to use the side by side with the render and the template all together makes it super easy for designing. So you can come in and say, okay, like, all right, I get it now. This C1 panel is going to cover this half of the a panel, and C2 is going to cover this other half of the A panel. And you can see that here. Right? Like these basically they're a bump out, so they come over the back wall, right. They don't go. On top of which is the B header, which we design. But the C1 and C2 panels come over the A panel. Meaning, like, you really just want to put color there or continue your. Most people will continue their graphics up knowing that, you know, it'll get covered by the C1 and C2 panels there. You know, this has the monitor placement we always say, and you'll notice we always say approximate on this because, you know, give or two, give or take like a couple inches, right? Like sometimes the TVs are different models and so they'll have slightly different, like bezels and so it'll take up a few different inches. So that's why we always put this as approximate. Right. Like this is where it's going to hang. But we do extra bleed. Like you will. You'll notice we're very conservative in how much bleed we accommodate for monitors versus I think sometimes sponsors are like, literally to the T on measurements. I always say, like, go conservative, give extra space so that, you know, without a doubt, you know, whatever you put here, right, it's going to be not blocked by your tv. And you can see also in our render rate. That's why I love doing this side by side. We just put color here for a reason, right? Like, usually that works best. I've seen people try and put like text and like type. Sometimes it gets cut off. So I like to play it safe. Like, even if you're like, okay, I'm going to put the text in between these two things, like you could. But also keep in mind, like you're going to be sitting at this table for a lot of the day, so that text is probably going to be blocked. So again, helpful to look at these side by side for context. Table placement, same thing, right? That's why we put a blue color there. We didn't put any logos until it was off to the side because again, it'll get blocked. It gets blocked by the table, gets blocked by you sitting there. So I wouldn't put anything, you know, action oriented or important. That's what the rest of the wall is for as well as your D counter. So D, this D panel on the super gold aligns to this front, what we call welcome counter. This is a great space to put things. Right. Obviously you're going to also want to keep in mind that this is going to block some of this. I wouldn't go. These are the same height too. So if you're like, okay, counter and table are the same height, you know you've got a lot of playable space up here. And just keep in mind that your welcome counter is also going to be in front of it. But it's really big real estate. It also has storage as a fun fact and power. So. So for those who are wondering. So yeah, hopefully that's a helpful. Just deep dive there onto the graphic templates again, something new we did for this year. So if you're a previous sponsor that might be more helpful or if you haven't started your booth graphics yet, would definitely sign your design team. Your specific Illustrator template that we've uploaded again, to get to those just go to the resources. You'll see we zipped them in a folder. So if you just. If you download these booth design Adobe Illustrator templates, you'll get a folder with all of them. Obviously just pick them up for your level. They're all labeled. It'll say like silver, gold, super gold, platinum, platinum plus things like that. So you'll know which one is yours. But just make sure you maybe just send your design team the one that's for your level so they don't design five different boots. Cool. We've gone through this before. I think that's. I think going over the templates is more helpful. We've gone over the late fees, things like power in the cabinets, monitors. Right. You can start to think about later and you've kind of just seen these side by side. So I'll go into a few other last reminders here. Registration. I know everybody has their codes from the events team. If you just signed, we'll probably send your code in the next day so you can also register. These are helpful just instructions if you're like I haven't registered my team yet and I maybe I'm not sure how to do it. These are also in the portal but if you just need a easy at a glance way to do it. Just the only thing to keep in mind is to make sure when you put your code in to the buy tickets page on Saskra Annual, you do need to give it a second for this sponsor all access ticket to populate because it's what we call a hidden ticket. So I've seen a few people try and buy an all access ticket for startups and then the code doesn't work and it doesn't zero it out. That's because you want this sponsor all access ticket type. So just make sure you are picking that ticket type and you're set it does take like a second to populate once you put your code in. But once you do, you're good to go. And it's set for the amount of passes you have in your contract. The other thing I know has been a common question lately is folks have asked for like a few extra passes because they're going to rotate their team members again. Cool. Just reach out to eventsaftering.com we can help you do that so that you have enough passes to cover your team, within reason. Right. So. All right, last but not least on activation, because I know a lot of you are also starting to think about activations, slash, getting ready to pick an activation once you pick your booth. We get this question a lot. So I've kind of updated the slides from years past, but we get this question on, like, is it an activation? Activations versus swag. Right. So just a quick explanation here. Yeah, I've used this chart before, but like, is it cake? Basically? Meaning, like, is it food? Anything food related is an automatic activation. This includes things like prepackaged goods. I know we get that question a lot in like, okay, like if I go to Costco or if I go to Target in San Mateo before the event and I want to pass out just like, you know, I don't know, chips or something from Costco. That's fun. That is still pre. That's considered a pre packaged good and food item. And that still does need a permit. And yes, there is still a fee on that permit. It's a maybe lower fee than some of the other permits, but there is. I think it's still a couple hundred bucks. So something to keep in mind is yes, stuff like that in San Mateo county does still need a permit. So again, it's super easy. We can help you fill it out. But it is something where you will need a permit to do. So it's also better, like, if we know about it beforehand if you are gonna do prepackaged goods. And like, maybe you're like, I am gonna go to Target or Costco and I don't know what I'm gonna do yet. It's still good to fill out the forms with us and like, get all the COI stuff done so that you have it ready to go. And when you show up, you can basically just fill in whatever item you bought and then we hand that off to the inspectors that are on site. So again, rule of thumb here is like one, if you're not sure, just ask us. Just email to Any type of food is an automatic activation, no matter how big or small it is. Things like games, right? I know people have asked about, like, games, cartoon artists already. It's still an activation. It doesn't need a food permit, but there are additional, like, COI requirements. A lot of the times you need extra power, you know, we don't recommend plugging that into the power that's there for your booth. That's really to charge your laptops and power your tv. That's not meant to power like a big game or so or a big machine. So it does need dedicated power most of the time, which we can help you get to the right place to order. And there are other things that are like, weird restrictions. Like we've had people try and bring balloons. And I'm like, balloons, cool. Yes, but actually restricted at the venue. Drones, restricted at the venue. There's other weird ones like that. Like glitter bomb. Well, maybe, you know, glitter bombs are maybe just, you know, messy and not nice to have a huge event and confetti and stuff like that. Again, if you're unsure, ask. If it's food, it's an activation. If it's things like T shirts, water bottles you're giving away, that's swag, you can still ask us for help. And, you know, just maybe confirm your shipping addresses with us. Happy to do so. Or if you're like, hey, I'm not sure how many quantities to order of a certain item, always happy to help do that as well. So just, again, if you're not sure if you're thinking about doing this, maybe it's your first time doing it at Zaster, just reach out to sastorinc.com super easy to give you, then point you in the right direction. Right. So cool. I've also seen things like, you know, okay, can we get dancers or people in costume? Costume, we've got a mascot. Can we bring our mascot? Again, just email us so we can make sure it follows any applicable guidelines. A lot of these are not our guidelines, to be honest. A lot of it has to do with the venue and the county that we're in. So again, we do try and make all activations happen as best we can, but sometimes there are things that are out of bounds or things that will tell you, for instance, are maybe a more risky activation than others just due to, you know, food prep or other things or like live entertainment sort of. So always good to just ask, right? Super easy. Can get on a call with you if you need and walk you through it. But other than that, you know a lot. I know I will say on the flip side, a lot of people do like do activations at faster than. So if you are thinking of maybe doing one to help increase traffic to your booth again, we always think it's a great idea. Just email us so we can help get you in the right place, get you going. You know, we've had a few sponsors already who are in the process and have already booked their activation and we're helping them with things like cois and loaded and extra passes and stuff like that. So it's not that we say no to everybody. Actually our default is let's say yes if we can, if we know about it. Right. Sometimes if you just show up with a thing, it's a little bit harder because we have to kind of backtrack all these steps that we try and do beforehand. So yeah, just let us know you can get creative. Mostly as creative on these as you want. We've seen a lot of different things in Saster throughout the years, so honestly, no idea would probably surprise us and just let us know there. Okay. That being said, I know we're at the half an hour mark so there's other things on here. Like again, if you're watching the webinar, I dropped the link in the chat. Like shipping is on here. Again, if you want to start shipping, you can do things like that. It's, it's. You can. All the information is in the resources section of the sponsor portal on shipping right here. We put it all together. So if you do want to start shipping, all the info is there for you. If you guys have any questions, drop them in the chat. I know I saw one earlier. So good question here. I'll just go up to the registration slide for context. One second. Okay, is, there's a question like is your. If you have content, is your speakers pass part of the allot number of passes in your contract? Basically the answer is yes. Like you do need to register them on your code, but if you need extra passes to accommodate your speakers, Jeff, again email eventsastic.com be like, hey, you know, I've got one speaker, I've got two speakers. Can you please increase my code by one or two? And we will help you do that. We know your speakers are not always coming all three days of semester. So yeah, just email us there. But basically the moral story is they do need to use your code or you need to use your code to register them on their behalf. So good question there on speakers and their registrations. Any other questions? Guys? Hang out for a second thought. Sponsor portal, another webinar next Thursday. Hopefully this was helpful to see some of the templates and booth designs side by side because that's basically everyone's deadline. And then about half of you have a slide deadline for the end of the month. But cool. All right. Thanks for joining. If you guys do think of questions or if you have one that's more specific to you that you didn't want to ask in front of the group, again, events.com here to help. And with that, we will see you guys next.