Sponsorship

BSides events are intimate affairs, where all participants can engage each other to develop professional understanding and connections. Our goal is to foster communication and collaboration while elevating the level of typical conference conversations.

Sponsors for BSides Austin have direct access to those conversations. Rather than just setting up sponsor tables and handing out swag, we hope you will also be an active participant in our conference. We need your money to make this event happen; that's no secret! But we also want our sponsors to come and be a part of the conference—sharing ideas, meeting people, and interacting with the local infosec community.

We understand that every organization considering sponsorship will have different goals and priorities, which is why we offer various levels of participation. We have specifically designed options for any sized organization to participate in and support this event. Please join us this year. It's going to be a good one!

Is your company interested in the benefits of sponsoring our event? Download our 2024 Sponsorship kit version 2

Sponsor FAQs

Before the event

At the event

{BEFORE THE EVENT}

Sending people to the event:

Companies that sponsor at levels that include a table (all except Core) may send two staff members to work their booth.

Each level also comes with a number of attendee tickets to the event, which you can use to send more of your own people or distribute as gifts:
Core sponsors get 1 attendee ticket
Silver sponsors get 1 attendee ticket
Gold sponsors get 2 attendee tickets
Platinum sponsors get 3 attendee tickets
Additional tickets beyond those included in each level of sponsorship can be obtained by registering on our Eventbrite page.

Swag bags:

In an effort to hold a more green event, we will not have swag bags this year. Any materials you want to share with our attendees should be shipped to the conference center or brought with you to be handed out at your booth. We recommend bringing 600 of each item you want to distribute.

Sending materials to the conference center for use at your booth:

Any items you want to ship to the venue in time for the event may arrive no earlier than Monday, December 2nd (the facility assures us that any that arrive early will not be accepted).
Ship to:
10100 Burnet Road
Commons Learning Center Building 137
Austin, Texas 78758
Phone: 512-471-5898
*Please indicate that they are for BSides Austin.

Forms of payment:

Once you sign the sponsorship agreement, we will send you an invoice. Because this is a low-cost yearly event, it doesn’t make financial sense for us to have a merchant account, but we are happy to take payment by direct deposit, Ramp or BILL (bill.com). Full payment must be made before our sponsorship agreement goes into effect.

{AT THE EVENT}

Parking at the event center:

At the beginning of the week of the event, we will email parking passes to our sponsors. Print out as many parking passes as you will have cars on site and place them in your windshield. The event contact at Pickle Center has suggested exhibitors park near the water tower.
The Center is part of UT-Austin and is said to be ruthless about ticketing. We have no power to help you get out of tickets, so please follow the rules on their parking passes.

Exhibits:

Sponsors may arrive on site to set up your exhibitor table starting at 7:30 am Thursday (12/5).
Tables are assigned to our vendors based on level of sponsorship and the layout of our booths area. We will indicate table assignments with signs at the event.

Conference sessions and exhibits run all day:
Thursday: 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Friday: 8:30 am - 5:30 pm

Exhibitor tables are 5 feet by 30 inches.

Each vendor table will have power. However, because we don’t know how many outlets will be provided by the conference center at each table, we ask you to bring a surge protector.

We will provide draping for vendor tables. However, if you have branded draping that you want to use instead, please let us know so we don’t order draping for you.

Connectivity in the event center:

WIFI will be available to all, and the password will be shared on site.

Lead retrieval:

We encourage you to collect contacts using a contest with a giveaway. If you decide to put out your fishbowl to collect business cards, we recommend that you display the prize at your table. It can also help drive traffic to your table to post about your giveaway on Mastodon and X/Twitter and use #BSidesAustin.
Because of Security BSides rules we do not provide the attendee list. We also do not provide/support badge scanners.

Giveaways/prizes at your booth:

You have three options for the handling of your giveaways:

  1. You contact the winner and ship the prize to them.
  2. You bring the prize and the winner's contact information to the registration desk before the Friday closing ceremony for us to announce in the wrap-up session. Note that if you choose this option, the person winning must be present. We do not ship prizes. You can notify the winner to invite them to stay for the ceremony in order to get their prize, but not everyone does. We cannot ship the prize back to you if this happens.
  3. You can stay for the wrap-up session and get on stage to announce the winner.

Shipping booth supplies back at the end of the event:

This information was provided to us by the Commons Learning Center, where we are holding this event:

 

Hotels

If you're coming into Austin for our event and need a room, you'll find a list of hotels located within a three-mile radius of the conference center: https://commons.utexas.edu/meetings-and-events/area-hotels