Checked In with Splash
Welcome to Checked In with Splash. Consider this your VIP backstage pass to learn from experts about how to create meaningful experiences that drive ROI, boost engagement, and tip the scales in your favor.
Checked In with Splash
Dreamforce and INBOUND: Takeaways, Trends, and Standout Booths
In this episode of Checked In, Splash's Haley Kaplan and Chelsea Hill recap their experiences at Dreamforce and INBOUND 2024.
Tune in to hear them share the creative booths that caught their attention, the similarities and differences between the two conferences, and the unique ways brands were getting noticed on and off the floor.
Plus, they explain how to choose which conferences to invest in and share the criteria they used to decide Splash's presence at both Dreamforce and INBOUND.
___________________________________________________________________
If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know. Support our show by subscribing and leaving us a rating. If you want to get in touch with our team or be a guest on our show, email us at podcast@splashthat.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Learn more about Splash: https://www.splashthat.com
Sign up for the Event-Led Growth Masterclass & Certification: https://splashthat.com/elg/podcast
This is Checked In with Splash.
Haley Kaplan:Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Checked In. If my voice doesn't sound familiar or if this is your very first time tuning in, hi there, I'm Haley. I'm on the experiential team here at Splash and I'm going to be chatting with my counterpart my ride or die, my second pea in my pod here at Splash on the experiential team, miss Chelsea Hill, who I will also very endearingly call her Chelly throughout the course of this episode, and we are so excited to sit down and chat with y'all all about Inbound and Dreamforce. But before we get to that, we're on the experiential team, like I mentioned, here at Splash. So that means that we own and we execute our full event strategy. So from top of funnel webinars to in-person events experiences to community plays like our strategy sessions, and all of the promotion and marketing in front, in between, behind, that's all on our team. So we wear many hats here as they relate to events at Splash.
Haley Kaplan:And last month, if you didn't know, inbound and Dreamforce, two of the biggest conferences that take place in the month of September, happened to happen. Happened to happen what a fun little saying. Happened to happen on the same week and Chelly and I decided we'd conquer them both at the exact same time. I took Dreamforce, she took Inbound and we've had some time to relax, refresh, and now we're sitting down to recap it all with you. So thanks for joining us on our virtual couch as we dive into today's discussion. So, without further ado, let me say hello to Miss Chelsea Hill. Hey, hailey.
Chelsea Hill:Hey there, hailey, second P in a pod reporting for duty. Before I do, let me say hello to Miss Chelsea Hill. Hey Chelly. Hey there, haley, second P in a pod reporting for duty. I'm so excited to talk about this with you. As we know, as you mentioned, the event powers that be decided to hold two giant conferences on the same week, on different coasts. So your girls went bi-coastal, like you said. You took San Francisco, I took Boston with our own crews, and we conquered the conference life, and so today I'm pumped to talk about it. So I feel like, should we do it? Should we just roll right into it? I have a great starting point, I think, for you.
Haley Kaplan:All right. You're ready to roll? I'm ready to roll, ready to rock, ready to roll. Let You're ready to roll, I'm ready to roll?
Chelsea Hill:Ready to rock, ready to roll? Let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. Well, let's start from the beginning. Let's talk a little bit about. I love your input and your thoughts on how to think about choosing between conferences and kind of then, more specifically for the Inbound and Dreamforce section, like kind of what our criteria was when thinking about the difference in these conferences.
Haley Kaplan:What a good question to start this episode with, chelly, thank you. Let's see, when we think about choosing conferences, it is such a tough topic for so so many marketers out there and I know we're not alone when we say that it's because there are so many conferences and trade shows that take place every single year. So thinking about, okay, well, which ones am I going to get the most ROI out of? Where is my ICP? It is such a tough, tough topic to tackle and thing to decide, and so I think when you're starting to think about what conferences you should choose to go to, it really starts with your research on your ICP. So what is your ideal customer going to? Where are they looking to learn, to search for solutions, or where are they even sponsoring and activating? So, for example, at Splash. I mean, we have the very lucky and fortunate privilege of marketing to marketers. So when we're doing our research on what events we should definitely go to and have a Splash presence at, we're thinking, okay, where are marketers going to learn? Where are they going to network? Where are they going to meet other people that are going to do things to help them in their role, their job, their career? So for us when it came to deciding Inbound and Dreamforce, our criteria was very much focused on our customer and prospect base. So Inbound is HubSpot's biggest user conference and it is just filled to the brim with marketing professionals, from your digital marketing to your data any and everything in between. We know that a lot of our customers also use HubSpot, and so we were like we definitely want to prioritize going to that event. And, on this flip side, same with Dreamforce. Dreamforce is a lot of those SaaS companies, those startups, and we have a lot of customers that use Dreamforce as their CRM, and there's also tons of events that happen all around Dreamforce that we were like we definitely need to be at this one too. There are marketers there, lots of people who are outside of our ICP there as well, but there's a good amount of our marketers that are present.
Haley Kaplan:For those two conferences, and I think the biggest piece of advice is that a lot of times it really comes down to trial and error.
Haley Kaplan:There's like no silver bullet for what conferences are going to be the best for you and your organization.
Haley Kaplan:So we always recommend a great way to test out if a conference is good or something that you should invest in the following year is to send boots on the ground like a sales rep, a marketing rep, two people on the ground to a conference one year, have them assess who's sponsoring, what the booths look like, who are the attendees, what is the vibe of the conference, and gather that intel firsthand and then you can use it next year as you're building out your strategy.
Haley Kaplan:So I know that it's not always a feasible option to do a lot of sponsorships and conferences and trade shows, but it can pay off big time to send some boots on the ground instead of going blind into a conference. You'd rather take a year or two to develop if that's the right conference for you, then spend $150,000 on a sponsorship and not get the results that you're wanting. Now I really want to pass it over to you, shelley, see if you have any other things to add, but I also kind of want you to share with the audience, using this criteria of going to Inbound and Dreamforce, how we really decided how we would show up at these conferences.
Chelsea Hill:Yeah, I wouldn't mind taking that one to kind of echo the boots on the ground portion. We love that. It's such a commitment to send a whole team and do a whole presence and you don't want to go in with a question mark. So being able to have a little boots on the ground sleuth the year before and figure it out is so, so valuable. All right, well, scooching on a little bit from that topic, we know that kind of the main way that people often feel like they have to show up at these conferences and trade shows is at a booth, host a booth, and that is no joke. That is expensive and I will continue to say this If you're one of those crew that has an unlimited budget, hats off. Please tell us everything so we can like daydream about it.
Chelsea Hill:But for those of us that have to get a little scrappy and kind of figure out what fits best for our budgets, there's other things you can do that have a presence, that really are impactful, and here at Splash we are huge proponents.
Chelsea Hill:You might've heard us talk about it once or twice before, maybe event-led growth. So really using these smaller, repeatable style events to grow your presence and grow your business and grow your brand. So that's what we do. Spoiler alert, we're going to get into this a little bit more soon, but these ancillary events wraparound events, sidecar events, whatever you want to call them we love them and they're a great way to be present at these big events without totally, totally, totally breaking the bank and blowing your budget. So one last hot take before we get too deep into these events the location is everything, especially keeping in mind if you're doing ancillary events or if you're at a booth, if you can swing a really good location that's easy for people to get to, not out of the way, convenient and maybe even like draws a crowd. Like I said before, delicious restaurants are always, always a yes in this crew.
Haley Kaplan:You said delicious restaurants. Yes, chelly is known for being New York restaurant guru Everything food and Bev in New York and I'm going to put her on the spot. But for listeners listening that are either going to New York or live in New York, what is your favorite restaurant? I know that's such a hard, maybe not favorite restaurant, but like top two If you had. I'm sorry I'm putting you on the spot Kelly, I have too many.
Chelsea Hill:My restaurant list is literally never ending and somehow my want to try list has now outpaced my tried list in my 13 years of New York life. So I'm always adding. But a place that's like the nearest and dearest to my heart and it's probably because I worked there for my first five years living in the city is craft and flat iron. It's just like a New York classic and I love it. And also biased.
Chelsea Hill:But the people that work there are the kindest souls on the planet and you will never not feel welcome in that place and plus it's like very delicious and a little pricey, but worth it. So if you haven't tried it yet otherwise we'll go LinkedIn later but I'd love to talk about it. Let's talk restaurants all day, thank you. So much.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh, I love it. Thank you for answering my very nosy question.
Chelsea Hill:I'm here for it.
Haley Kaplan:I'm here for it. I think it was just kind of what you mentioned about ancillary events, and that's how we always choose to show up to conferences and trade shows, Because what we found from our scrappy budget is that you get a lot of ROI out of that. A huge trend that I saw this year and I think Chelly saw it at Inbound too was that there is such a heavy focus on these ancillary events now. Focus on these ancillary events now, especially at Dreamforce, there was so so many VIP lounges all spread out throughout around Moscone Center, and I found it really interesting because the companies typically did not have a booth on the trade show floor but they had this space that they were able to really create, brand and just absolutely make it their own experience for probably a little less or the same amount that they would pay for a smaller booth on the trade show floor.
Haley Kaplan:So some companies that were really noticeable to me that stood out with theirs is Hike 2, Sixth Sense, Workado, Coastal. I mean so many more companies too, but they had these lounge spaces where they had a team coming in to take meetings, to offer food, to just create an experience away from the conference floor that they were able to fully make their own and I feel like that was a huge trend that I saw this year and I really love it. It's kind of what we preach, that event-led growth is the way to go and to really capitalize on that budget that you have and get the most that you can out of it. So people took over restaurants for two days and made it this VIP lounge area. That just was really great brand awareness, great for meetings, I mean all of the above.
Chelsea Hill:Really love that because I've never been to Dreamforce. But don't they shut down most of like downtown San Francisco and the like Moscone area?
Haley Kaplan:Yeah, there's traffickers on every single corner. You know like it is Dreamforce when Dreamforce takes over San Francisco.
Chelsea Hill:That's so cool, so like in a such a city that has such a specific feeling, like San Francisco does, and it has like such a cool culture and vibe, and to be able to walk around and experience it outside of the conference center sounds like it was just very magical.
Haley Kaplan:It was really cool. It was very well done. I'm excited that Inbound is going to be in San Francisco next year too, so I'm excited to see how they kind of take over the city. Did you also see similar things at Inbound as well, like a lot of different ancillary experiences and what was one that was notable to you?
Chelsea Hill:For sure. So we feel like the main difference was that, because Inbound is so kind of like fun and vibrant, I feel like most of the daytime things were in the conference center itself.
Chelsea Hill:So we didn't see as many like outlier lounges or meeting spaces that were outside of the conference floor, but we did see buckets and buckets of happy hours and after hours events after the conference hours, which we love, as I said, big fans of the old ancillary event over here, so we're totally on board Loved walking around, walking back to the hotel and just kind of passing restaurants that were getting set up. You could tell that these places were getting set up for people to come in from Dreamforce and it was super cool. We also sponsored a happy hour event with a number of other awesome companies and got a great turnout. And what's really fun is the more conversations I had with people who also hosted these kind of partnered ancillary events also had awesome turnouts. So I don't know if it was just something in the Boston air that week or like people were just ready to party but like inbounders were like out and about and ready to go.
Chelsea Hill:I heard about some boat excursions and some dart playing and lots of fun stuff and it just it really is like such a warm feeling when people just want to be together after they've been together all day with their teammates. You know sort of like a silly thing to bring up. But you know you're with these people all day working together, and then you choose to be together afterwards to go, continue to talk to people and have a little bit of a of a home base next to you. So I always think that's so special and can't really you can't really duplicate that at a booth. So big fan over here.
Chelsea Hill:But I also wanted to talk a little bit about Haley. So we hosted an additional wraparound event in addition to the happy hour. So many additions, additions on additions. Addition inception we hosted a Spark Connection dinner, again with a couple partners. This is a bit of a smaller event and I kind of want to get into it, but I would love to talk a little bit also about maybe why we chose to do these more ancillary events at Inbound and a little bit less at Dreamforce.
Haley Kaplan:Let's get into it, let's get into it, let's get into it, let's get into it.
Chelsea Hill:So we did quite a few of these, but I wonder your opinion on why we did what we did.
Haley Kaplan:Yeah, I get what you're saying. I know what I mean. I know what you mean, I know what I mean I know what you mean.
Haley Kaplan:I think that one of the reasons why and I mean this is kind of as we're building out our strategy one of the reasons why and I mean this is kind of as we're building out our strategy one of the reasons why we chose to do a couple more ancillary events and experiences at Inbound is because our primary ICP is who Inbound is really designed for. So it is designed for marketers and we are marketing to marketers. So for us, doing something at Inbound was truly a no brainer when it came to an ancillary event or experience, because our ICP was not only activating at the booths, like putting them up, setting them you know what field marketers do but they were also attending the conference to learn, to seek out more information. Learn to seek out more information. Whereas Dreamforce we wanted to have a presence but our ICP was very much smaller compared to the vast majority of the attendees at Dreamforce. So for us it just made sense to do a dinner at Inbound, and when you host an event for marketing pros, it's just so, so fun and we always kind of frame them as it's not a timeshare pitch, like we don't want to sell you Splash.
Haley Kaplan:Well, obviously, I mean, yes, we obviously frame it by Splash, but that's not the purpose of our answer. We don't want to sell you Splash. Asterisk Asterisk, yeah, yeah, little asterisk on that. Yeah, we don't want to sell you it at dinner. We want you to have an amazing experience at dinner, meeting other people, talking through challenges with similar people in similar boats, but we want you to come out of it being like wow, splash provided me such a valuable experience at this conference and we want you to walk away with it being one of those things that you're like that was my favorite part of inbound and it wasn't even technically a part of inbound, but that's why we love doing these little dinners at events where it gathers our ICP together.
Chelsea Hill:Yes, I said reach, thank you. Fun fact, I sometimes refer to Haley as my splash Sherpa, but she's also a strategy Sherpa, so you know she's got the answers if you have questions about that. Oh my God, and how to like best take advantage, and why? Because that's what she does and she's so great at it, oh my.
Haley Kaplan:God, I literally mirror right back at you because I also think you are my co-strategy, sherpa, so we do a lot together here.
Chelsea Hill:If you can't tell, just a couple of splash Sherpas just trekking up strategy mountain.
Haley Kaplan:Everyone, you should join us on this climb. We should. We'll be your sherpas we'll try our best.
Chelsea Hill:try our best. This is welcome to our daily life, everyone. Switching back on to topic Chelly, yes, we are classically known for getting off topic slightly. We're back. We're back and we've talked about sort of why we went to where we went. Let's talk about the fun stuff. Let's talk about what we saw where we went. Let's talk about what we saw, what we liked, what we loved, what we liked what we loved. Generally, I can kick us off and just I was going to say let's get into it.
Haley Kaplan:I would love to hear about booths notable swag entertainment that you saw at Inbound that you absolutely love and give the listeners some inspo on booths that you really, really enjoyed.
Chelsea Hill:I feel like I really thrived at Inbound. It was so fun. It was my first time there. Feel like I really thrived at Inbound. It was so fun. It was my first time there. It was not overhyped, the good vibes metric was high.
Chelsea Hill:What I really liked initially kind of just walking into the space. I mean it's massive and it's one open floor plan, so you have everything on one floor, with the exception of a couple of things that were up top, but for the most part you walk in. You see everything front to back, the main stages in the back, so you really you know, if you want to get through there, you got to walk through everything. Shout out to the Kirkland crew. This just really made me think a little bit of Costco and I say that lovingly, because when you're at Costco you really just want to walk through and see everything and then eventually you end up buying more stuff. So, inbound, you kind of want to walk through everything to go see Ryan Reynolds and Serena Williams talk, but then you also want to stop at a bunch of stuff because there's really cool things happening and unique kind of activations and fun swag. Wait, this analogy is everything.
Haley Kaplan:Oh my God, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed.
Chelsea Hill:I love this analogy. You'll never catch me not talking about Costco, literally.
Haley Kaplan:Any reason we can bring things back to Costco. I think is now going to be on our docket.
Chelsea Hill:I think so too. I really think so too. Did you feel like general vibes of Dreamforce was also like Costco?
Haley Kaplan:Yes and no. Yes and no. Dreamforce is a bit larger and more spread out, so not entirely like Costco, definitely lots of smaller stages within larger trade show rooms and things like that. But I do love that about Inbound is that it's like one big communal warehouse of just like everything that you could want Truly, truly, you could want for nothing in there.
Chelsea Hill:We had some fun stuff. I came home with some excellent swag, super fun. I mean we got to give out really fun swag that we'll definitely talk about a little bit, yeah, but just some kind of fun, memorable things. I saw on the floor, everything felt really interactive. Rollworks had a t-shirt printing but they had four kind of constantly on offer, always had a line, but the second day they had one specialized shirt but they were only printing for a certain amount of time and that line was out of control and it was so cool and everything was like had sort of a like a topical pop culture theme which was so fun but also tied back to ABM. I thought that was super memorable. Sendoso had these really cool trading cards that they partnered with other sponsors on the floor to collect trade and hopefully complete challenges and get prizes. I thought that was awesome. I love that. And then possibly the dreamiest situation was by HubSpot itself. They had an essential oil making area and a massage station for like five minute chair massages.
Chelsea Hill:Wow, and I did wait in line for said five minute massage for possibly 30 minutes or so, because it felt so right that I needed to do it after I got my essential oil, which, by the way, it's a dreamy little blend of eucalyptus and rosemary.
Haley Kaplan:Oh, a classic combo A classic.
Chelsea Hill:I did selfishly get to enjoy a little bit of moment on Friday morning before everyone headed out. It was so nice. But I know, haley, I know you said you know Dreamforce is a little bit different. But also as far as Splash goes, we also had a station kind of in the Sixth Sense Club Six offsite, so in the lounge format. We were part of that trend that you noticed of having these lounges offsite. So I know you were camped out there for a good chunk of time. But is there anything that you saw popping in and out of the floor or anything you saw at Club 6 itself that was really a standout for you?
Haley Kaplan:Oh my gosh. Well, if you haven't been into a Club 6 where they activate, definitely try to get on the list or book a meeting with them. Their activation is just so amazing. They completely transform this restaurant into this very tranquil but fun area with delicious food. But something that I actually really loved about the swag that they handed out was it was all locally sourced goodies, so they had like jewelry that you could take. They had like anything emergency kit related, so they had little IV packs, the like patches for hydration, and they also had a coffee cart, which I'm a huge fan of. So they had some swag that they handed out too.
Haley Kaplan:But, as Chelly mentioned, we at Dreamforce did not have a booth, did not have an activation, but we still wanted to give out something.
Haley Kaplan:We still wanted to give out a little bit of swag to our ICP, which at Dreamforce we're really trying to get those field marketers who are working really hard and working overtime to know that Splash cares about them. So we have a very big core value here at Splash called Take Care, and we decided this year, since we were doing kind of a more boots on the ground ancillary event approach that we would make these little take care kits and hand them out to field marketers at the booths to kind of say I hope you're taking care of yourself. I know this week is a little crazy. Here's a little swag bag from Splash and in it we had noise canceling machine, which was a very big hit. We had an eye mask so you could sleep really good at night and like block out any light. We had these little I don't want to say hangover kits because I feel like that's like not PC to say on a podcast but we had little survival kits, survival by emergency you know your liquid IV, some band-aids some and essentials.
Chelsea Hill:And essentials, and morning essentials, if you will.
Haley Kaplan:That's a beautiful way to put it Chelly. A nice morning essentials kit that had some little goodies in there to just boost your spirits, and then a little luggage tag because we know that you've been traveling, and there were some snacks and goodies in them too. And we did something similar at Forrester, but it wasn't as like curated as it was for when we did it at Inbound and Dreamforce and it was such a hit. It was so fun to see people receive this kind of like take care focused swag, which I think is a big trend. Like you, even stopping and waiting 35 minutes to get an essential oil and massage speaks volumes of how much people really do care about taking care of themselves when you're just like running and gunning during conference time.
Chelsea Hill:I totally agree and I did disclaimer. I did text the team to make sure everyone felt fine at the booth while I was waiting in line. I totally, totally agree, and especially because we really geared these towards our own ICP, I think that's really something to keep in mind. Swag can have a purpose and it can be helpful, and it doesn't just have to be something to give out for free, and that's kind of the goal. No one wants to pack their suitcase with a bunch of stuff that they don't actually want to take home.
Chelsea Hill:Yeah, that's no fun. But it also did give us a super cool opportunity to connect with attendees beforehand as well. Yeah, as we created our own splash page for it, so people could request a take care kit before the conference and then we schedule the time with them to either swing by and pick one up from us or we would go ahead and deliver them to wherever they might be, and that was just such a cool way to kind of get the conversation started with attendees and people before we even got on site. It was such a valuable and also very fun communication to have leading up to the event. That'll set you up. You know, absolutely. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.
Chelsea Hill:And, keeping with the fun tone of that sort of scenario, I do also want to ask you because I am okay, we had cool stuff at- Inbound like I said, but we did not have Pink, we did not have Imagine Dragons, we did not have Benson Boone, so I need you to tell me everything about this entertainment. Part of Dreamforce.
Haley Kaplan:Oh man, absolutely one of the most fun concerts ever that I've ever been to. Why? Because Pink is a phenomenal performer. One but two.
Haley Kaplan:Something that I loved about Dreamforce was that there was always something that you could see that was like entertainment wise. So they had Vance Joy I mean not only their benefit concert, which is a whole feat in itself, but, like throughout the day of the conference. All of a sudden they had Benson Boone play for an hour and then they had, like I said, vance Joy play for an hour and then they would send you alerts that someone else was starting to perform in the quad. So from an entertainment perspective, dreamforce had it stacked. There was always something which just took the level of this business conference. The idea of a stuffy conference was completely shattered at Dreamforce because there's just so many moving parts that makes it really, really fun to attend.
Haley Kaplan:And something that I think is really cool that they do at Dreamforce is the big, massive concert. You know where Pink, imagine Dragons and Kygo were at was that they make it into a benefit concert. So the whole concert. They are talking about the children's hospital there in San Francisco and they have like a fundraising portion of it. But I think something that could be really cool or amazing is if they donated like a portion of your ticket and maybe they do. But I think it'd be so cool if they donate a portion of your ticket to this organization or to sponsorship dollars that go towards this or just like tons of opportunities to give back.
Haley Kaplan:Even more, especially when you have such a captive audience and you get so many and you put on a production of that size. That's Dreamforce. There's so many opportunities to pocket in ways to kind of give back. So I love that they incorporate that into the big concert. But it'd be really cool if they could also add it into other little pockets of their big mega conference, because there's just so so many people there and they do so much good. But we might have had Benz and Boone, we might have had Imagine Dragons, but you yourself had Deadpool, mr Ryan Reynolds and the one and only Serena Williams. I would love to hear what the entertainment was like at Inbound. Give me all the tea.
Chelsea Hill:Okay, before I spill all the tea, I'm going to put you on the spot, because when I hear Vance Joy, my brain goes to karaoke, because it is literally one of my friends' go-to karaoke songs. We've had enough karaoke experiences together that when I hear Vance Joy, I think karaoke. Haley, I need to know what's your go-to karaoke song. I got to know, the people got to know.
Haley Kaplan:Oh, this is honestly such a hard question. I feel like it's like you picking a restaurant in New York, cause I just it depends on my vibe for the night. You know like it really depends on the vibe that I'm going for I feel like my like go to go to without fail has to be Valerie. Oh, it just like gets the me going, it's got the crowd going. It's a good one, good one, really good one. I also anything. Abba is my second. So like Dancing Queen, any of those goodies.
Chelsea Hill:All crowd pleasers.
Haley Kaplan:All crowd pleasers. I have a very not great voice, so anything where other people can sing and drown out my voice is a 10 out of 10 for a karaoke song in my book 100%.
Chelsea Hill:Couldn't agree more. What's yours, Chelly? No thought needed. It's I Want it that way by the Backstreet Boys.
Haley Kaplan:I should have known.
Chelsea Hill:I should have known that is such a good one. That is also falls in the category of everyone knows it, so everyone sings, because I'm also not gifted in the in the song stress category. So we work with what we got. But I couldn't hear that and not think about it and not ask you. So well, thank you. Thank you for indulging.
Haley Kaplan:I wonder what Ryan Reynolds and Serena Williams are.
Chelsea Hill:We should ask them, you should ask them. I mean not to brag, but I did meet their cardboard cutouts and get a picture with them. So it's fine, you are technically famous, I am basically famous, you are basically them.
Chelsea Hill:Okay, it's like like just really to appreciate the cool factor of these incredible humans, who are amazing what they do, but also like have, then are then like there to talk about things that they've built, because they care about other people in life, and ryan reynolds talked about the origins of his marketing agency, which felt really topical, and ser Reynolds talked about the origins of his marketing agency, which felt really topical, and Serena talked about the reasons behind starting her VC fund, and they, unsurprisingly, drew a really big audience. I think having Ryan Reynolds there specifically on the last day was a game changer move, way to like a great call. People stuck around for that and I don't blame them. That's a huge name. But I do have to say, though, like seeing Ryan Reynolds is super cool and definitely like wanted to check off the bucket list of oh, wow, it's a huge star. But Serena Williams is the goat.
Chelsea Hill:Listening to her talk it was just so inspirational. You have to admire her for the dedication. She mentioned working with companies that really have meaning and giving them a chance. I mean, she's Serena Williams. She's unapologetic about how amazing she is. So just, I'm really here for that. But I think those two were such a big draw, huge names, yeah, and it was like felt a little spoiled for sure. No, programming was really late, it was all kind of within the conference hours, which I thought was interesting. So for the most part, kind of everyone started to clear out after these conversations and the day kind of winded down and then you said onto those ancillary events that were very events were everywhere, yeah.
Chelsea Hill:So that was kind of like a nice way to end each day with like something to look forward to and very smart on the on the HubSpot cruise part, to put them at the end there for sure.
Haley Kaplan:Oh, I love it I love it.
Chelsea Hill:I'm so jealous. I know it was so cool, but we both had really cool things. So you can't be too jealous of each other because that's true we got pink. I got. Serena Williams.
Haley Kaplan:Both queens, honestly Both queens.
Chelsea Hill:Absolutely, absolutely. And then I know we kind of talked about at the beginning about having a booth is exceptionally expensive. So for these maybe a smaller business or someone who's just getting started that don't have these funds. I also you might notice if you're watching any of these clips we are wearing our splash denim jackets that we wear on the conference floor and they get so many compliments we wear on the conference floor and they get so many compliments.
Chelsea Hill:So just to like kind of close us out with a couple of thoughts around being present and showing your brand on the floor in creative ways. These jackets are always a conversation starter.
Haley Kaplan:Always Don't be afraid to like show up in something that's like a little unconventional from the usual conference wear, because it just one, brings awareness to whatever you've got going on and, two, it just like also is it catches your eye. It's just like if you were to see a really intricate looking booth. If you use your branding in a clothing form or whatever you want and it stands out, it's a way of getting more awareness. That's like super low cost but has pretty high impact. I think you saw tell them about the cute little fairy that you saw at Inbound.
Chelsea Hill:She was wonderful wearing wearing fairy wings as the Mops Fairy, really leaning into her personal brand. Saw Santa costumes, saw different outfits for different days on teams, but I think kind of the coolest thing that stuck out to me was that these kind of people that were maybe there by themselves or like as a duo and like a smaller crew, they really used that to build their personal brand. And I think that's so interesting and bold and like why wouldn't you want someone in your corner that's wearing fairy wings? Like are you kidding, sign me up? Like I think it's so memorable and it really sticks out. And if you can create your own personal branding on top of that, it's brilliant. I love it. Like we're a creative crew, let's lean into the creativity, right.
Haley Kaplan:I love it. Events are a really great place for you to be bold, be brave and take chances, and I feel like doing that at conferences stands out even more. It's really such a good, good play to take that and then run with it and roll with it.
Chelsea Hill:Chef's kiss Stunning.
Haley Kaplan:Stunning, no notes, unique, never been done before, absolutely incredible.
Chelsea Hill:Perfect, perfect, perfect. I couldn't have said it better ever myself, but I will leave us with that little little note and tie a little bow on it just by saying that these recaps are so fun, and this one in particular was kind of like a perfect segue into what we have up our sleeves. Coming up next, which is another Ask Me Anything style episode with Team Experiential. Here, me and Haley, we'll be answering all the questions that were previously submitted around the topic of conferences and trade shows, and if you have one that you want to throw into the mix, we'd love to hear it. So send it our way at podcast at SplashThatcom, and we can't wait to talk about it. So, haley.
Haley Kaplan:Chelly real quick. Where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about Splash?
Chelsea Hill:You can connect with me on LinkedIn at Chelsea Hill. I promise I will still answer to Chelly if you say that in the connect. I hope you do.
Haley Kaplan:I hope people do. That's so fun. I am also on LinkedIn at Haley Kaplan and you can learn more about Splash through any of the links in this podcast episode by Googling Splash, and we hope that you join us again. Thanks so much for listening, and with that, I think I can close it out by saying take care, thanks everyone, thanks everyone.
Camille Arnold:All right, folks. That's it for today. If you enjoyed today's episode or are a fan of the podcast in general, please let us know. Support this show by subscribing on your preferred podcast platform and, while you're at it, leave us a rating. We so appreciate feedback we receive about the show. So if you ever want to get in touch, you can email us at podcast@ splash that. com or, better yet, join our Slack community where you can message me directly. Last but certainly not least, if you're a marketer using events to help your business grow and want to learn how Splash's platform can take your events to the next level, like we have for MongoDB, UCLA, Okta, Zendesk, visit our website at www. splashthat. com. Until next time, take care.