The end of the year is upon us again—and what a year it has been! In Q4, our team planned 19 events in 7 different cities across the globe. Safe to say, it has been a rewarding, but busy close to the year. In this recap, we’ll share where we’ve been the past few months, what we’ve learned along the way, and look ahead to where we are headed in 2024! 

This quarter we executed events of all shapes and sizes. Among them were: a TED event, AI-focused content meet-ups, intimate & curated dinners, holiday parties, happy hour & mixers, virtual workshops, 400+ person afterparties in Vegas and Europe, and that’s just to name a few. 

Where else have we been in Q4? 

• In early October, cred had the pleasure of helping to plan and execute the first-ever TED conference focused on artificial intelligence. Our team was onsite at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco assisting with the full speaker and content experience with some of the top voices in AI. Read our case study on this event here!

• In early November, we executed a 200+ person summit for enterprise IT and Innovation leaders in San Francisco. Entrepreneurs and industry luminaries joined to learn and discuss trends and insights driving innovation shaping the future of enterprise technology. For this event, our scope involved attendee management, event landing page & registration,  attendee badge & lanyards, vendor management, F&B selections, and managing the attendee check-in experience onsite. 

• After the Thanksgiving holiday, we were right on a plane to Las Vegas for AWS re:invent to help host a 400+ person afterparty for a venture client. At registration, we used sustainable fabric badges for the first time, which ended up working out great.

• In late November, we had a double-header event day on November 30—but we thrive with a busy schedule! Our team was coast-to-coast in SF and NYC for 100+ person meet-ups, complete with fireside chat content, product demos, and mingling. 

• Throughout this quarter, SaaStr continued its live Workshop Wednesdays, moderated and produced by our events team. Thirteen webinars were hosted in Q4, which brings us to just under 50 to-date in 2023. If you haven’t yet, please join the community and check these out!

The events industry is always changing, and with this, we’re always learning. Here are a couple of our biggest takeaways from the past 3 months:

• December attendance rates are always tough to predict. You should plan for slightly higher attrition given the cold & flu season and busy schedules. Have hand sanitizer at registration to combat those winter germs and always ensure there is a place for coat check since it’s likely your attendees are arriving in layers. If folks show up to your event, you know they prioritized yours over several others that week!

• In the same vein, focus on individual food offerings like passed apps rather than stations. Not only is it more cautionary health-wise to prevent the spread of germs, but also requires less table or bar space for hot trays and arrangements, which can be an issue for non-event venues that don’t have their own F&B offerings. 

• Don’t forget to have a mocktail option! We’ve seen a decline in the amount of alcohol guests are drinking, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative—especially around the holidays. Incorporate some colors into your mocktail with fruit and herbs!

• We bet you’ve heard about AI countless times in the past few months. Well, it’s changing the events industry in more ways than one. Read more of our take on AI in the events space here. 

This quarter, we had a chance to work with 13 marvelous speakers from companies like Atomico, Salesforce Ventures, Freshworks and MongoDB. In 2023 as a whole, we worked with a grand total of 460 speakers. 

In all we do, we continue to prioritize visibility for women and underrepresented speakers on stage. Thirty-three percent of the speakers we’ve worked with this year are from underrepresented groups and 44% are women. We look to consistently push our clients towards achieving at least 50% for both categories throughout the year. 

We are extremely proud of our work in 2023, and grateful to our inspiring clients who we thoroughly enjoyed working alongside on all 130+ events we executed this past year. We had the opportunity to plan events in four different continents this past year (North America, Europe , Africa, and Asia).

In early 2024, our events will take us onsite in Denver, Sundance, NYC, SF/Bay Area, and LA, as well as some virtual opportunities. We are looking forward to some much-deserved R&R over the holidays so we can hit the ground running in the new year.

Have an event you are looking to bring to life? We’d love to help. Email us at events@credpr.com

Cheers to a fantastic year!