SaaStr Insider Webinar: Europa 2023 Preview

Welcome everyone. Hello, SAS fans. Yes, not a first time caller, but a many time listener at that. So there's that. Yeah, it's nice to see everyone. Long time listener here. Here for a while. Here for a while. It's good to see everyone. Good to be here. Good to be back. I had a little bit of a sabbatical I'd say for what, about a year. So we're up. We're up and running. So it's good to be here.

So yeah, exciting times. I thought with well one we would just, you know, tell our audience that one that Brian is back today. Join me as a co host and also we thought it would be fun since both Brian and I have done Europa for a couple years now to give everyone a preview of SAS Europa 2024. How does that sound?

I'm making a drum roll. No one can hear it, but I'm actually banging on my desk in a drum roll fashion.

Well, cool. We should talk a little bit about some of the post annual stuff. If you guys missed it last week at the end. But we wanted to focus this week's webinar and try and keep it. We've been trying to keep these ones maybe closer to 20 minutes or so. Keep it tighter so that you. They're a little bit more digestible. I know leading up to annual, a lot of these are like hour long and a lot of information. So yeah, we're trying to. We'll try and keep it to about, you know, 20 minutes of which I'm already three or four.

15 left.

Let me go into full screen here. So sas vieropa maybe for those who don't know, because we've been talking so much about South Brianna for the last few months, this is going to be our fourth SASA Europa. And the. Or is it the fifth? Oh, maybe I'll count them in a second. It might be the fifth. I'll count them in a second. Yeah, that's the fifth.

Is it okay?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. This is our. Some people like people, a lot of people always ask us like what's the difference between Europa? Like is it the same audience? Like, you know, especially. I think from a sponsorship perspective, I think from a standard perspective, right. There's a lot of different. There's completely different speakers and so that's kind of straightforward or more self explanatory. But from a sponsor's perspective, yeah, it is quite different. We actually just ran the data now, having had annual just last month and we actually saw a minimal crossover in terms of direct audience between the two events. So like, same demographics of like CEOs, founders, sales, marketing, all that, but literally just a small contingent of like actual overlap between the two events in terms of attendees. So what you're getting is pretty much a distinct audience between the two events. There's like a 3% overlap in super fans that literally went to all of our events this year. So those people racking up miles. Yeah, 3% is not a lot. So, yeah, definitely a unique audience to Saster, but the same tester community, you know, love, you know, Sass, CEO, founders, entrepreneurs and revenue leaders. So, yeah, that's kind of the gist of Saster Europa there. We are going to be back in London for 2024. So we've. We've never repeated a venue for Europa for fun fact until now. So this is exciting times because I feel like there was so much more we wanted to do at Tobacco Doc now that we did it this year, that we're taking all of those really good learnings and putting them in to 2024. It's a great venue, as you know. I know Brian's been to like, it's open air, which is nice. So if you've been to annual and you haven't done Europa yet, it's. It's a festival vibe, but just on a little bit of a smaller scale and not, you know, we don't have 48. You can't really get 40 acres.

Yeah. Plus if you're a history buff like me, it's got some great history, which I love. So it's got a really kind of cool history to it. It looks historical at that. So it's very. It's very England. It's very England. I love it. It's a good spot.

It's very British. It's very central, which I think a lot of people loved about the venue this year. Right. You can get there from the tube and then walk. You can get there from the Channel if you're coming from the airport. It's in central London. So again, if you're in central London, it's easy to get to anything else too, if you're going to customer meetings, stuff like that. We actually ended up really liking this venue this year that we. And we want to do more with it because we did not utilize the entirety of the space this year. So that's what we're planning to do for next year. So that's exciting times. We'll be back in June, so we, you know, we historically had Europa the first week of June, so we're keeping that in intact for next year. The fourth and the fifth wasn't this year with great weather, you know, fingers crossed. Great weather next year. It's. I know, oddly as it sounds, sometimes it can get a little warm in London. You're like.

It'S the right time to be in London at that.

It really is.

Yeah. All my, all of my London friends listening to this and also that message me right now about how cold and cloudy it is right now. They look forward to June, so it's a good time to be there.

Yeah, no, it's a great time to be there.

Speaking of, look, the clouds have parted.

Right. It will look like this of our event. It's a good simultaneous. So, yeah, we talked a little bit about Europa, so. Yeah, Europa. So how it all started. Because, you know, next year is actually the 10th anniversary of SAS for annual. This will be the fifth anniversary of SAS for Europa. We did two years in Paris, so it actually started back in 2018, was the first Europa we did because we had a lot of annual sponsors and a lot of the community. Again, as I mentioned earlier, it's the same people, the same kind of demographics of our Saster community, but not the same people. Right. So it kind of opened up a new exposure to the community and a lot of folks have been asking us for a long time, please go to Europe. Please go to Europe. Yeah, we did two years in Paris. It started off really small. Took a break for something in 2020.

Yeah, something that happened in 2020.

I'm not gonna say it on the live stream. Yeah, something that happened and then, yeah, we, we brought it back to Barcelona. It was, yeah, Brian was there. It was like open air, really fun on the wall.

It was a party. It was a party. It was a sass party. I actually think one of the big pieces of feedback from Barcelona was just how many members of the community were there and how like alive the energy was, the atmosphere was. So.

Yeah, yeah. And we, you know, I think it's funny, not maybe funny, a few folks were concerned when we took it from Barcelona to London. They're like going to kill the vibe. And we're like, I don't know, it's. It's indoor. Outdoor. It's like on the dock, like not the same kind of water, but it is on the water like we're going to, you know, it's the community that really creates the vibe. And then I think, yeah, they were kind of, you know, pleasantly surprised that it was the same vibe.

Yeah, yeah.

Just in London, you Know, so like, you know, a little different food for sure. Same vibe, different city.

Good food at that. Excellent food.

I love it.

Let's be real, it's all about the food.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We kind of looked at all the data. We looked at the data from annual again to see if there was overlap. I think too, if you, you know, just on the sponsor lens of it, the valid concern, pre event going into London this year, you know, like, will there be more overlap between the two events? Because it's in London so it's more central. Right. It's easier to get to than Barcelona. But yeah, you know, survey says not huge overlap there, like less than 3%. So yeah, you get this awesome and epic community of, you know, of the staffer community that can only come to these things that are in Europe. Right. For one reason or another. You know, it is very cost prohibitive to get through the States, let alone annual. Right. So it's always like kind of a trek and a Mecca. And a lot of people do make the journey, but some of them just make the journey to Europa. So yeah, we'll probably have closer to 4,000 people for, for the 2024 event. That's kind of what we're, that's honestly what we're tracking to. So fun fact, if you haven't seen it yet, the, the website is up, we're selling sponsorships and tickets are being sold and tickets are already ahead of where they were last year and last year they were really ahead of where they were from Barcelona. Yeah, this one, I always, I think I was talking about this a lot with Europe because it's, it's near and dear to my heart because there's always been a Europa since I started. So it's nice to always see is, you know, it is such a fun event. It's just at such a good size. Like, you know, I think 4,000 is the right amount where you can talk to almost everyone in two days. Right. If you're doing it right, you can have a lot of meaningful conversations. And again, these are people who are again, like you're a space. So, you know, we do get. Usually the host city is the most populous city that sends delegates. So yeah, last year, like the not counting Brexit, we counted all of the uk. It's confusing for us Americans. We counted the UK as like, you know, the top, the top delegate country. And so I'm sure that's how it will track this year. But you know, there's people from all over Europe. There is actually two. I think about 10 to 15% that come from the US and Canada and make the journey that way if they've got London arms and London offices. But yeah, it's a great demographic of folks who are coming that are European based. If you sell to European companies or you know, European companies that have an international presence, this is really where you want to be because that becomes to that Europa. Anything I missed there, Brian?

No, I think, I think you hit the nail on the head. For those that have been saster fans and followers for a long time, I think very naturally Europa is following a very similar path in terms of attendance which is really exciting for us because every year we see it grow even more in the mid market and enterprise space and I, I wouldn't expect anything different in this year. It's, it's just getting wider and more popular and so it's a very enthusiastic community. To anybody that knows the European SaaS community, it's a very enthusiastic community. They're very engaged so they usually come to this show and they're very, they don't waste time, which I love. So it's, it's a, it's a good, it's a good spot to be in.

Yeah, I would say too, that's a, that's a great point because it is two days. It is like a lot in the span of two days. But to Brian's point, you know, we waste, we, we spare, no, no moment to spare. Like everything is full of either networking or content or a chance to interact with sponsors. So we kind of already talked about our audience but again same staffer community that you know and love just with that focus of, you know, most of them are coming from within Europe and mostly from the UK because that is the hill country for the year. So you know, mostly sea level, C level and director level executives split between CEO, sales, marketing and then yeah, a fair amount of investors if that's something that's near and dear to you. Yeah, I think we've talked about this a bit. So yeah, great, great audience that comes there. The other thing I was going to say just before we go to the actual booth packages and stuff just on the Astro Europa. It's such a good point too that like this audience that comes to Europa, they want to do business. Right. And I think folks actually saw that this, we got that commentary and feedback from folks who did both Europa and annual this year. Right. I think sometimes staff or if you don't know it as much, you can sometimes lump it into like, oh, it's, you know, Like a Dreamforce or like an inbound or like any of those just big tech conferences where people just, you know, there are people there who are serious, but then there are people who are there to just like just swag. And I think we had some really great feedback from our sponsors this year who did both, who said, you know, they didn't really run into that Europe and they were, they were happily surprised they did not run into that at this year's annual and that everybody was there, you know, to get stuff done, if you will. And I think that's, that's a little bit too of the nature of how things are going in staff and tech. Right. I think everyone is very ROI focused. Roi, you know, driven. They either want to, you know, make a sale, close the deal or make a good connection or make a really good hire. I know a lot of people were on like trying to recruit a bunch of people.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think that's a positive indicator too that like these people are coming. Yes, they're coming for two days and like they are coming seriously. Right. Seriously talk to vendors, like to seriously talk to our sponsors to learn from these speakers that we bring. And I do think Dash New York was a bit different in that we do try and stay away as much as we can from just European SaaS company speakers, meaning like we either want folks who are global, etc. So you know, this last, just this last June, we brought like Loom uipath. Right. Those are huge global companies. Like they're not constrained to just the US or, or they're only Europe specific. I know Cockroach Lab was there. They're a big US company. Right. So yeah, I think that's a differentiator from us too. We actually make employee to almost not to do that because we know there's a lot of conferences that do do that and there's obviously a time and place for it, but we like to be a bit more distinctive. So we do bring, you know, US speakers as well as international to Europa that are doing international business. So from that perspective too, I think that's, that's why it draws the community. It does in London. And I would say too, if you've never sponsored after event, it's hard to know from these photos, but it is something where we make the sponsors really the focus of the event. And I think sometimes we've heard it's actually a little overwhelming, folks because a few people were like, I could never leave my booth at annual because there was always people coming up. Yeah, a great problem to have right of like we do center and we do literally architect the entire floor plan to be around the sponsors, the sponsor hall and the content. So that wherever, you know, whatever it is, if it's in the morning, if it's during happy hours, if it's in between sessions, like there is constant traffic, which is what I love about our softer events. But it can be, you know, it's, it's a lot of conversations. So that is one thing to bear in mind. It's like to make sure if you are thinking about sponsorships, you know, we can help you make sure you staff accordingly. But it is something where like you, you know, you can see here like they, they've all brought like a lot of team members with them because, yeah, it's been a constant conversation.

Yeah. And I think you'll see too when we get into the sponsorship packages, it's a, it's an intimate environment. So coming back to your, to your floor plan point, the spaces are just different. Right. Like when we, when we do the fairgrounds for annual, it's such a wide and open space that we're creating the intimacy. When we go into like a tobacco docs, that space is already feels intimate. So our booths feel that way too. And this way you are actually the more team. Like in this case, you see the team members they're bringing, there's team members are not just standing at the booth to Amelia's point. They're out engaging in different parts of the event. They're going to see some content. They're also meeting with people. It's, it's an ongoing interaction between all the different aspects that. And activations that happen on site. So, yeah, I think it's a good call.

Yeah, fair point. Okay, so let's go into the booth packages before we run out of my proverbial deadline here on time. The goal package for Europa. This is turnkey. It is actually slightly different from what you guys may have seen at annual. So that's why we want different photos of, you know, what the folks had this year. So, you know, it's a branded back wall. You can see her from Zendesk. It's that branded welcome counter as well as a monitor that you can or you can either use or not use up to you. And yeah, it's again, it's turnkey. So you send us the design. You know, we do the back wall and then the front kiosk is that big kind of like logo treatment. So this is our entry level option for Europ. Again, there's no bad boots at Europa. So if this is the only like often that is in budget, there's no bad boots. The golds are really turnkey too. If maybe you haven't sponsored a big event like Saster yet, they're really great entry level packages. There's no bad gold boots on the floor, I would say. Yep.

I agree.

Super gold is always. I don't know, I don't want to say it's my favorite of our packages actually. I think the diamond for annual series my favorite because they were so tall. But supergold I do love. I do think, you know, this is the one to me that is always the most feasible. If you have the budget for it. You know, it's an 8 by 4 which means you do get that bigger kind of branded back wall. But you do have space for an activation. Right. When you're in the gold, you're in a six by four. It's just not enough space to have you, your team and all the furniture we just mentioned, like it's pretty constrained. So it's pretty much just, you know, again it's turnkey which is great. Makes it a lot easier to show up and like bring swag and stuff like that. But there's not space and accommodations for activation. So I really like the super gold in which you have enough space to do an activation. Right. You get a bit of a bigger branded back wall and presence and so I think it's just nice because you can use it more of like a billboard style. Yeah. The super goals, I think again that's the biggest call out there is the space for the activation.

I completely agree. It's also my favorite, to be frank. I think it's very accessible. Well, because I think the gold. There's so many gold and that's. And that's again we. There's no such thing as bad booth. So if that is your budget, we want you there and that's great. But if you're looking to stand out just a little bit more, this is that way.

So yeah, yeah, there's definitely a way to do that. I know Vertice brought like a putting green. A lot of the other sponsors did like activations with us. Yeah. Through the venue. So yeah, it's super cool for fun because you get that space and like optionality to have an activation. And if you guys missed us talking about it last week we saw that at Faster Annual the the folks who had an activation had about 60 more leads than those without. So you know, if you want to capitalize on that momentum to get, you know, again, more leads, more ori, which is top of mind for everyone then. Yeah, I think we always try and recommend, we try and anchor on the super goal, if you will. It's. It's our favorite for a reason. Right. It's fairly accessible. There are reasons however to go platinum, right. So if you want a big presence on site, like Greenhouse has its branded wall. It was also branded on the back. It's a 12, it's about a 12 by 4 space. They actually had a little, they ended up with a little bit more. So they had a bit of a lounge, they had a popcorn activation that brought people in. You get this huge nice branded wall, right, to make an entrance. And you do get a speaking session with the Platinum. So it's a 15 minute speaking session. Great way to get, you know, your CEO or revenue leader on stage in front of this audience. It's front of this community. And it does have like first right of refusal for activations, meaning, you know, there's only so many activations that can be accommodated in any venue between Europa or annual. And so we always give our most top tier sponsors the first right of like refusal, meaning they get to choose first activations and then the super goals get to choose next. So. Yeah. Anything on speaking, Brian, I might have missed there?

No, I just, again, if you're not used to our speaking guidelines, we do have guidelines that are very important for our speaking. So I, if you're unfamiliar, just to call out, it's a good thing to go and maybe go and see some of our old sessions and try to dive in there. But we try to keep things pretty tactical, pretty, pretty much in a way that I could leave that session and go and take it and apply it to my business today. And it's a big goal. Right. So it's a little bit of a different, I would say feel than like we don't want obviously you to go up and do pitches or things of that nature that's not on par with us. Right. But I do call that out because it is a little bit of a curve. I do know that there's some areas where that can be acceptable in the world. It's not a saster acceptance. So I just want to call that out really important. The sessions are well attended. They do have a lot of exposure. This one's included on the main agenda. So like things like that, there's a lot of double thumbs up like for Roger and Ebert, but at the same time just some, some nuance, I would say.

Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. On, on the sessions and going back and watching them and obviously it's something our team can help you work through. Y I think that is the meat of what we wanted to review today. So I know Brian, not only you've been active during your sabbatical and I know like advising a lot of companies in the meantime for something like Europa. You know, how should folks think about it when they're thinking about their 2024 planning?

I think that's a great question. I think that there's a lot of exposure aspect that I think some of the companies that I've been advising miss in places like MBA and Apac and they want that extra eyes because of the environment, the audience that Saster produces for Europa, which is very different again than many other other types of maybe branding or different events that I've seen my advisory companies do. Saster as a community tends to come, as we mentioned, to purchase. They are there to do business. And I think that everything in 24 is very ROI centric and lead driven as it should be. Right. And so if you're thinking about I need demand gen, I need the ability for exposure and have be able to meld those two worlds very perfectly. That's where Europa is going to be a big help, especially in the first half of 2024.

Yes. Yeah, okay, good points there. I think we'll wrap it on that positive note. We will send out these slides as always for recording. Thanks for joining on the live streams. I know some like many of you actually started watching this on LinkedIn. Thanks for watching there. Yeah, we'll send this out if you guys have any questions. Brian, what's the best way to use two emails here? So what email should people use?

Yeah, no, Brian at Sasterco will work. Brian@sasterco.com you can reach right out to me. You can also get me on LinkedIn, very popular because I'm there always and my phone is connected to me at the hip so you can get me there. And look, there's a lot of, I'll say this one last piece. There's a lot of ways in which you can activate the Saster community even in Q4. So if you're trying to find things for now or if you're planning for later, there's no real bad time to reach out. Please reach out. We're happy to help.

Yeah. All right, thanks guys as always. We will see you back here next week. Same that time saying that signal. Awesome. Great to be back. Yeah. Good to have you back. Thanks for joining and we'll talk to everyone.