How I put on my first conference and sold out with $0 spent in marketing + our next conference on Sun May 4 (SF and online)

I put on the largest event in my life. Here’s everything I learned so you can put on your own conference, vibe, and thrive!

I started working with Learners in December 2023 to put on our conference in May 2024. Here’s what we focused on every month leading up to it.

Keep reading towards the end where I’ll share how much we spent to put on this event 👀 This one day event cost us almost $40,000 USD but we also made a profit

Also, we’re hosting our next one on Sun May 4, in San Francisco and online, CoCreate, for designers and founders!

Sign up here for San Francisco ($199, but I made you a special code for 30% off for being newsletter subscribers, code BUNNY). It’s FREE to attend online and we also have a talent collective and networking sheet for both!!

Build an existing audience (2020 - present)

I had an existing audience through Design Buddies and social media. Also existing sponsor relationships. I would recommend having this already or work with an organization because it will help you secure sponsors and attendees. A conference is an expensive operation.

Make sure you’re collecting emails! Social media algorithms always change and sometimes they even get shut down. We all have email. Email is also where people go there to take action, versus TikTok to be entertained.

If you’re hosting a hybrid conference, I would recommend working with a production partner who has done livestreams and conferences before.

Theme (Dec 2023)

You’ll want to explore several themes you think your audience (and yourself) is interested in, and ask for feedback. Your conference branding and programming (speakers + sponsors + activities) stems on it. The theme ideally should be pretty broad.

I themed our conference based on the common topics I’ve seen discussed in our Design Buddies Discord - AI, AR, and VR! That’s why I called it “Design The Future.”

After I attended many tech events in San Francisco, I thought they felt too corporate or tech bro-y. I’ve always liked drawing kawaii style anime art. A week before, I was buying a lot of decorations on stage and stumbled across many bunny plushies!

I decided to start a movement on making tech kawaii. I started marketing our conference as “the most kawaii tech experience in San Francisco” and got more sales. Don’t be afraid to be unconventional.

Brand development (Dec 2023)

I was vibing on the Caribbean Sea on a cruise back in December and made some sketches of how the brand could look like. I searched up design and tech conference branding on Pinterest to also get some inspiration. I did a few polls on social media to see what folks would vibe with.

I then took those and explored some more directions with colors!

I went with a dark mode theme + bright pastel colors to give that future and kawaii feel. I included this branding in all of our conference social media posts, banners, deck (show), stage, and physical displays at the venue.

Since we are creating the most kawaii tech experience, I included many plushies on our stage and bunny ears for everyone! I wanted to create a unique and memorable experience to help attendees connect as friends instead of “hey where do you work?”

Location

I chose to host our conference in San Francisco because many members of our community interested in emerging tech are here and it’s convenient for me.

For the venue, we looked at spaces that has a good capacity, in a nice neighborhood, and looks nice inside and outside. I would recommend visiting the venue before signing the contract to host your conference there.

We hosted our conference at Gallery 308. It has a nice open space, good lightning, areas where we can have a tech set up for live streaming, and the outside is quite nice around the Marina in Fort Mason. It’s a bit harder to get to but we only had 200 spots for in-person and prioritized quality over quality.

Catering

The food is apparently a memorable part for attendees. We provided lunch and all day coffee and snacks. We worked with a catering company, brought a coffee truck, and got additional snacks and water from Costco. Consider everyone’s dietary preferences and order for variety. Look for options that are quick for people to grab such as lunch boxes.

We ended up ordering slightly more than we needed and giving away the rest. It’s better to not run out of food. Catering is expensive and I share the breakdown costs at the end. All of it costed us over $10,000

Getting sponsors (Dec 2023 - May 2024)

Conferences are an expensive operation! There are major costs like the venue, catering, A/V equipment, branding, staffing, and more.

Companies typically sponsor conferences to drive their brand awareness and generate more leads. I chat with them individually to understand their goals, target audience, marketing pain points, and budget before sharing my conference sponsorship packet.

It’s quality over quantity! Make sure the company is building something that’s useful to your audience. You’re collaborating with your sponsor to work towards your goals. I’ve also noticed that sponsors who pay more are easier to work with because they understand your value.

If a sponsor wants air time, make sure it’s not overly promotional because the conference is for your community. Work with them on their content so it resonates with your audience. For example, re-framing a promotional demo to a practical workshop where viewers get to gain new skills while onboarding and learning their tool!

Your sponsorship packet

What to include:

• About the conference (date, location, target audience, theme)

• Other brands you’ve worked with

• At least 2 tiers, ideally a title and gold sponsorship. In each tier, you can include things like branding on all conference marketing, social media camp gain leading up to the conference, table at conference, free tickets for their team + community, demos/workshops, access to attendee list (who opt in), and more

• Your email

Conference website

On your website, include a clear description and CTA to sign up in the hero. Include more details about your conference, schedule, sponsors, about your organization, and more.

Our website:

https://design-the-future.joinlearners.com/

Call for speakers (Feb - March 2024)

Having great content and speakers are key to having a great conference. This is an opportunity to co-create with your community!

I put out a form to recruit speakers. Each speaker also received an honorarium. We had hundreds of applicants!

In the form, we asked:

• Talk title

• 2-3 sentence description

• Previous speaking experience

• 2 minute video of them talking about their topic

• Where they are based (we didn’t have the budget for air + hotel)

• LinkedIn, email

The reasons why I rejected a speaker is:

• Talk is not on topic for the conference

• They are only here to promote their products

• Too many applicants - I needed to diversity the topics

There are many amazing speakers who applied. I tried to give each speaker who applied but didn’t make it a free ticket to attend. I ended up going with speakers who are newer in their careers with great content to share to give them their first experience in speaking at a conference!

For our first conference, we opted for mostly speaker + slides + Q&A. For the online audience, having a visual on the screen can be more engaging than seeing people talk. My favorite panels are when the speakers disagree and explain why.

Conference schedule (April 2024)

We wanted to balance our day with mingling and content. Since this is a hybrid conference, we were heavier on the content side as they were live-streamed.

We started our day with a coffee with Bezi outside as we set up inside. Then an opening with talks + breaks + lunch + more talks + breaks. Then an after party!

I would recommend having the schedule out ASAP, like at least 2-3 months before. It helps with ticket sales and getting more sponsors. We weren’t able to get ours up until 3 weeks before due to factors outside our control but learned and will make sure to have it earlier next year!

Ordering branding items and swags - ideally 1 month before

Map out how you want the room to look and feel like and start ordering items - banners, decorations, and anything else. We ordered a bunch of bunny plushies and bunny ears for everyone. Also Long Bunny as one of our stars!

Recommend not printing names on badges before because sometimes people don’t show up. Leave it blank, provide a sharpie for people to write their own names.

Promoting the conference - how we sold out

We and our sponsors promoted on all of our channels across Discord, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and newsletters.

I attended and hosted in-person events in San Francisco, mentioned our conference, and invited people here.

We also partnered with similar communities. We asked they promote the conference to their entire community and in return, we included them on our website and promoted them at the conference.

I designed templates in Figma community about “I’m attending Design The Future” to allow attendees to add themselves and share on their socials. You can also create a hashtag for your conference.

1-2 weeks before the conference

I made docs of instructions for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers based on what they needed to do before and during the conference. Also group chats. For our sponsors, I created slack channels to coordinate everything. For the day off, I gave my number to all the organizing parties so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed needing to check so many messaging apps.

To keep the show smooth, I made a master deck of all the slides that will be presented.

Make sure all the deliveries will make it in time. If things are getting shipped to your house, make sure you have people helping you to carry everything and room in your car to transport everything over.

I posted about our conference almost every day on Design Buddies social media. Even after we sold out of in-person. I made it clear that we sold out to get many sponsor interests for next year.

Encourage attendees to connect beforehand and meet up before the conference. We had a channel in our Discord where folks attending can chat in.

Be well rested leading up, you’ve worked hard for this!

DAY OF THE CONFERENCE

Setting up

Come as early as you can to set up. If you’re live-streaming, double check all the audio, video, and internet is working. Have a team to help out and give free tickets to all your volunteers!

Running the show

Stay calm and excited, you’ve made it! Say hi to ask many people as you can! But also have friends that can help make other folks feel welcome and included. You’ll likely be running around all day, making sure all operations are smooth.

Encourage people to make friends, take selfies with each other, and post on socials + tag Design Buddies and we will re-post!

Cleaning up

Have a team to help you clean up. Then, have an after party to celebrate! We hosted ours at Dovetail's office.

AFTER THE CONFERENCE

I’ve set up calls to debrief with my team and sponsors to hear their feedback to help improve next time.

Next year’s show starts now! Share the takeaways and recordings on social media. Get folks excited for next year where you’ll make your conference even bigger!

We will be hosting another conference next year. It will be on the Monday of Config week and probably 4x the size.

WHAT WE SPENT

Total in USD

Venue + cleaning: $12,100

Food: $10,321

Production staffing and gear rentals: $5,587

Picnic table rentals: $2,465

Team travel: $2,286

Speaker honorariums: $2,000

Stand up foam boards: $1,901

Stand up banner: $918

Car rental: $477

Custom tablecloth: $450.00

Swags: $480.23

Plushies decoration: $310

Tablecloths: $200

Courier fee: $40.00

Total: $39,877

Thank you:

Our organizing team at Learners

Our sponsors Bezi (title sponsor), Dovetail, STUDIO, Spline, and Adobe

Our volunteers Suraj(Lakshh) Gontla Pravardh Mishra Aurum Kathuria Kevin Mei Emily Fang Christabel Agbugba BP Rimal Francisco Joel Nevarez Eli Al-Shamari Ruchira Biswas Miya H. Zhang 🌟

Our speakers Shuya Gong 🌱Resham Khanna Jennifer Jing Adam Syed Dylan Rabin Aishwarya Bagaria Federico Francioni Leon Zhang Daniel Marqusee Cecilia Uhr Karen Campa-Perz

Gallery 308 Staff

The nearly 4,500 people who signed up (+ online)

Our whole Design Buddies community for making this all a success!

Hope to see you at our next conference, CoCreate! Brought to you by Design Buddies, UXGO, and bolt.new on Sun May 4 for designers and founders! In San Francisco and online (free) https://www.cocreate.careers/conference 

We’re doing things differently than traditional conferences with half day keynotes, half day breakout groups. Come gain practical skills, talk shop with peers and mentors, make lifelong friends, and collect merch that will make your friends jealous.