10 SXSW Experiences That'll Give You Major Event Feels
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10 SXSW Experiences That'll Give You Major Event Feels

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Written by Esther Chung

@esthermchung
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10 SXSW Experiences That'll Give You Major Event Feels

March 21, 2018

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10 SXSW Experiences That'll Give You Major Event Feels
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Written by Esther Chung

@esthermchung

10 SXSW Experiences That'll Give You Major Event Feels

March 21, 2018

Need inspiration for your next event? There are four little letters and one big festival that’ll smack you in the face with inspiration: SXSW.


Austin draws over 300,000 people from all around the world -- so, it’s no surprise that top brands stake their claim in Austin early and expensively (like spending weeks building elaborate sets and activations, renting out pricey venues a year in advance, bringing in the biggest talent from every industry... you know, the usual).


This year's SXSW proved just how effective experiential marketing is to customer engagement and brand awareness. From HBO’s immersive Westworld experience to Tinder’s Swipe Sessions party at the Mohawk, we count down our favorite SXSW experiences this year.


Event planners: take notes.

Are you considering different attribution models and want to know which one would be best for your organization? We lay out how to do this using the right formulas in our new guide to measuring event ROI.





1. HBO: Westworld's "Sweetwater"

There’s always that one incredible SXSW experience -- where no line is too long, no time too wasted. The most tweeted-about, buzzed-about, talked-about experience this year was HBO’s activation promoting their cult-favorite TV series, Westworld.

By bus, guests traveled 40 mins outside of downtown Austin to arrive at Sweetwater, the main setting of the show. “Hosts” (character actors) hand-picked black and white cowboy hats for guests (important to those who watch the show) and guests had the opportunity to drink old timey cocktails, listen to local music, interact with “hosts,” and even get a beard trim.

 

With all its little thoughtful details, this experience was completely immersive and allowed fans to feel like they were truly a character in Westworld.

  

Budget and breakdown
What was my budget for the event?
What did I actually spend?
How did my spend breakdown? (event production vs. travel expenses vs. swag, etc.)
Registration and Attendee Rates
How many people (and companies) registered vs. attended?
What was the goal for this conversion rate?
Was the final conversion rate higher or lower than anticipated?
What was the registration and attendee breakdown? (Industry, Title, Seniority, Clients, In Pipeline, etc.)
Promotion results
What promotion channels did we use for the event? (Channel examples include paid ads, email segmentations, VIPs / Target Accounts, sales participation, partners)
Which channels netted the best results?
Where should we invest again and where do we need to go harder next time?
Opportunity in the Room (This is one of Splash’s favorite event metrics)
If all of the people who registered at the event were opportunities, 
how much could they eventually buy from us?

2. A.V. Club/The Onion: Just Another Manic Monday

Another year, another A.V. Club/The Onion banger. This year at SXSW, we saw one of buzziest line-ups of the entire fest -- up-and-comers like Lucy Dacas and Shamir rocked the famous Mohawk stage, as well as hipster royalty, Superchunk and Wye Oak.

See the full line-up on their awesome event page here.

Metrics to Track:

➫ New leads and accounts generated

 

➫ Meetings held on-site

 

➫ Meetings held post-event

3. Reddit: Live AMAs and Performances

To celebrate their highly-anticipated redesign, Reddit (along with their new branding) took over the Belmont for the day. 


They threw two major events: all-day live AMAs with niche influencers like Chloe X Halle and the creators of “Endless Thread,” and an all-night dance party with performances from Chloe X Halle and Kittens.

 

See the full line-up of activities and performances on their event page.


Metrics to Track:

➫ # of opportunities and value of opportunities in the pipeline

 

➫ Stages of pipeline values and numbers

 

➫ Pipeline accelerated

4. Pandora: 3 Days of Music at SXSW

Outside, fans danced to back-to-back killer music acts. Inside, fans found their “personal sound.”

Alongside 32 of the buzziest music names (Tank and the Bangas, Duckwrth, Jade Bird, Kelela, and more) to the Gatsby, Pandora also brought its famous Music Genome Project technology so fans could truly experience the power of their technology. With a quick pic of your face, the technology uses facial recognition and some simple personal questions to determine what “sounds like you” (which is also the name of Pandora’s big campaign for the last couple months).


See their event page here and all the music that was included.


Metrics to Track:

➫ Revenue generated and influenced

 

➫ ROI on event

 

➫ # of deals accelerated at least one stage in sales cycle

 

➫ Reflection on the event

5. Tinder: Swipe Sessions


Tinder brought the heat this SXSW: italian ice by day, and the sultry sounds of (a very on-brand) Miguel and Jhene Aiko by night.

@MarleneRivera

The best part of the event? The exclusivity of the invitation. To get in, fans had to download Tinder and swipe for a “golden ticket” to gain exclusive access.

 

See their beautiful event page here.


6. Pitchfork: Pitchfork Radio Live


Broadcasting live, Pitchfork brought in major music feels with live recordings of huge names like Natalie Prass, Superorganism, Andrew W.K, Chromeo, and more. 

The setting (a very “Austin” coffee shop/bar) was unique, authentic, and intimate and fans from around the world could experience the event.

7. Dell: Dell Experience


With 17 different events ranging in a variety of topics (seriously, a variety), Dell provided a multi-level experience -- everything from a special podcast taping of Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson, to an “Are you Smarter than a Mathlete?” competition, to an art show promoting the importance of e-recycling.


See one of our favorite panels:

author

Amy Holtzman

Amy Holtzman is VP of Marketing at event marketing platform, Splash, which powers in-person marketing programs for the world’s leading brands, including more than half of the Fortune 500. As VP of marketing, Amy oversees demand generation, product marketing and customer marketing. Prior to Splash, Amy served as VP of Demand Generation at content intelligence platform, Conductor, and before that held senior-level marketing roles at Demandbase, CBS Interactive and Crain Communications.

Catch it all on demand and the beautiful event hub here. 

About the Author

Ben Hindman is co-founder and CEO of Splash, the country's fastest-growing event marketing platform that helps businesses and brands more effectively market through their events. An event planner turned tech entrepreneur, events are in Ben’s DNA. Prior to starting Splash, Ben was the Director of Events at Thrillist, where he produced large-scale events from concerts to mystery fly-aways.

8. Splash: Magic Hours Sunday Showcase


And, of course, we threw our own event! Sunday night, we partied at the Sidewinder and brought in an amazing line-up of electrifying artists: Glassio, Rick Feds, Miears, Yellow Shoots, Mobley, Leisure Cruise, the Disfunction, and Slow Magic.

And we think we had one of the coolest photobooths ever...(thanks Bosco!)

Check out all the photos from the event here.

9. TechCrunch: Crunch by Crunch Fest


TechCrunch brought the day vibes with an all-day music + tech fest. Guests kept busy with light-up fidget spinners, scooters, a claw machine, and tunes by Autograf, Miears, Mobley, and more.

See the photos from the event here. 

10. Beautyrest: Max Richter x Sleep


Sleep is scarce at SXSW. So why not combine the two?

On Tuesday night, British-German composer Max Richter performed his epic, Sleep, for 150 lucky people. For the next eight hours, his lullaby-inspired piece served as a lullaby for the attendees -- who were each given a twin-size Beautyrest bed equipped with pillows, blankets and even silk eye masks.


Talk about an immersive experience.

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Written by Amy Holtzman

@demandmarketer

Splash: How We Won at Dreamforce and Tripled Our Lead Goal

October 18, 2017

Want to know how to make your own events memorable? Here's how.

• Marketing team size:  5 total, 3 of whom were on-site at Dreamforce
• Budget: $85k, including travel and expenses for 13 Splash attendees
• Activations: 5 hosted events; 1 Dreamforce event calendar



1. Community
Building and strengthening our members’ sense of belonging.

 
2. Engagement

Creating opportunities to deliver a complete Equinox experience to drive advocacy, retention, and acquisition.


3. Scale

Leveraging technology to manage, evolve, and expand our events strategy.


Using these 3 major tenets and a killer events program, Matt was able to get better customer engagement, less churn, and, ultimately, everyone’s goal -- more customers.


See how below:

Want your event to run as smoothly as a duck? Here are 5 best practices for reaching your highest door goals.

Leading into Dreamforce, we had early indications that our investment would pay off -- high conversion rates on our promos, good registration numbers, a few landing pages that went viral among a close-knit group of CMOs and tech marketers. And, on-site the momentum continued with better-than-average attendance rates and a line around the block for our flagship event of the week.


While Dreamforce certainly felt like a victory as we packed our bags in SF and headed back to Splash HQ in NYC, we weren’t ready to claim victory until the ROI spoke for itself. One month later, we’re celebrating here at Splash.


Post-event results - one month later:

•$85k in closed/won revenue accelerated by Dreamforce engagement
•9 in-pipe deals accelerated at least one stage in our salescycle
•$370k in net-new opportunity generated
•17 meetings held or scheduled but not yet an opp

How did we do it?

Creativity. Grit. Technology.


I don’t think there’s any better way to explain our approach than to share the memo I sent to Splash employees three days after Dreamforce. It’s a little unconventional, but the excitement among attendees, across our social channels, and internally, was contagious when we returned. Everyone wanted to know how we conquered Dreamforce, especially without an official sponsorship.

 

So, when I returned to my desk on Monday following the event, I sent the following memo to the company.

 

In my email, here's what I cover:

 

Our Strategy

 

 


Creativity. Grit. Technology.


I don’t think there’s any better way to explain our approach than to share the memo I sent to Splash employees three days after Dreamforce. It’s a little unconventional, but the excitement among attendees, across our social channels, and internally, was contagious when we returned. Everyone wanted to know how we conquered Dreamforce, especially without an official sponsorship. So, when I returned to my desk on Monday following the event, I sent this to the company:

How We Won Dreamforce: Our Strategy

‌• Sync event data bi-directionally on your terms. Advanced control settings let you decide exactly what data is updated. Granular settings allow field, contact, and event-level control to enable the insights your team needs while maintaining data integrity.
‌• Collaborate easily on guest lists. Salesforce, Splash -- it doesn’t matter. Your marketing and revenue teams can collaborate on a guest list directly in a platform they’re comfortable in.
‌• Capture more event data than ever before. Data is seamlessly captured from Splash landing pages, our host app, or our new business card scanner and synced automatically to Salesforce. Say goodbye to manual processes and data loss.
‌• Track event engagement to prove ROI. Easily identify, track, and manage every event interaction at the lead, contact, and account level, enabling powerful revenue reporting from every single event you throw.

equinox marketing strategy

The bi-directional sync between Splash and Salesforce was life-changing for our team. It’s great to be able to open my ROI dashboards every morning and see how many new opportunities resulted from an event and how much is in the pipeline.”

Som Puangladda

VP of Global Marketing at GumGum


See how they built it:



Do you have what it takes to leverage event technology? Learn more from Matt Burton in this 20-minute video.

event-team-collaboration-app

Not only is it helpful to quickly solve any issues (and there are always issues), but it’s also helpful to communicate with your team inside the venue on the status of check-ins. Most importantly, alert your sales team that their VIP guests have arrived.

5. Dos-and-Donts for Not Breaking The Law: Keep Count Of Your Attendee Numbers

The last thing you want to think about is hitting capacity. Because hitting capacity for your event would be a good thing… right?


Unfortunately, not keeping track of the number of attendees, and subsequently, violating fire permit laws, is a common problem for many event planners. Avoid this by using an old-fashioned clicker or the Splash App using the “checked out” status -- that’s key for tracking who’s in and out of the space.


Pro tip: have the fire permit in hand and contract printed out. And have another person keep track of how it feels inside the event, whether it’s hot in the venue or too crowded.


A couple good questions to consider asking the venue manager about the space:


• How many people in the venue makes it feel full?

• How many people makes it feel empty?

• Where can lines form?
• How many people can be at the bar at a time? (A typical drink order takes about 2 minutes. Alleviate bar crowds by having cocktail waitresses holding pre-made drinks.)

Bonus Details:

Timing: Start Door Duty an Hour Before Event

Sure, attendees may arrive late. Sure, you may still be organizing right up until the last minute. But people will begin showing up 25 minutes after starting time, which means, security has to be ready for the flow of arrivals. Some people will also arrive early and if the door isn’t staffed, you don’t want these people sneaking in before it’s time.

Staff Up: The Golden 1:50 Ratio

To maintain organization, have a 1:50 ratio between the company and guests. This may vary based on how complex the on-site registration is.

Veterans know: there is no such thing as too many RSVPs

When I was a rookie planner, I remember being very nervous that there were too many RSVPs and the right people wouldn't get in.

 

As much as the experience at the door matters, remember: a packed event is a good thing. A very good thing. A line makes you look popular, and people don't really mind waiting (if it moves). Much worse than over crowding is UNDER crowding... no one likes an empty room.  And when someone on your team is stressing, tell them to chill. You got this.


author

Esther Chung

Esther is the Director of Content Marketing at Splash. When she’s not deciding what to eat for lunch, she leads content strategy for Splash, a technology company that powers advanced in-person marketing programs for the world’s leading brands.

About the Author

Ben Hindman is co-founder and CEO of Splash, the country's fastest-growing event marketing platform that helps businesses and brands more effectively market through their events. An event planner turned tech entrepreneur, events are in Ben’s DNA. Prior to starting Splash, Ben was the Director of Events at Thrillist, where he produced large-scale events from concerts to mystery fly-aways.

Want to take your experiential marketing to the next level?

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Event ROI isn't impossible.

Get the comprehensive guide that’ll take you from ROI to career-high.

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Going to Dreamforce in November? Join us and see what events we have in store!

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