Sponsorship Information We appreciate you taking time to consider sponsoring PASS SQLSaturday Baton Rouge 2014! We ve put together some information that will tell our about plans for the event and multiple sponsorship opportunities for your company to maximize your 2014 SQL Saturday presence. This year our event is August 2, 2014 on the campus of Louisiana State University at the Business Education Complex on Nicholson Extension. Complete Information, Registration and More: sqlsaturday.com/324/ Contents Event Overview... 2 What Sponsorship Opportunities are available?... 3 Blog Sponsorship.... 3 Bronze Sponsorship.... 3 Silver Sponsorship.... 3 Gold Sponsorship.... 4 Platinum Sponsorships.... 5 The Raffle Your Key to Success!... 7 Payment... 8 Event Logistics... 8 Code of Conduct... 9
Event Overview Think of a SQL Saturday as a one day free conference, linked to a network of similar conferences around the world, on six continents. We attract intelligent, volunteer speakers from around the United States, provide free lunch on site, and we have a dedicated exhibitor area set up for our attendees to meet with our sponsors. We work diligently to make our event a great experience for everyone, especially our sponsors who enable us to cover the working costs of this event. The event is attended by SQL Server engineers, developers, managers, and other IT professionals who attend topics of a wide range of technologies and soft skills. There will be high-quality technical sessions on not just SQL Server, but also.net, SharePoint, Windows Server, PowerShell, mobile app development, project management and more. This is our sixth year running a SQL Saturday conference in Baton Rouge, and we drew 560 IT Professionals in 2013 to the shining architectural gem that is the LSU Business Education Complex. It s a fantastic event for recruiting, networking, brand awareness and sales, attracting programmers, IT Managers, CIO s, project managers, students and more. To read more about SQL Saturday conferences around the world, visit sqlsaturday.com. SQLSaturday is a concept of Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) and started by the Baton Rouge SQL Server User Group, a chapter of PASS.
What Sponsorship Opportunities are available? We offer a wide variety of sponsorship packages, which enable us to provide the one-day educational conference free to attendees. That s right - SQL Saturday Baton Rouge doesn t charge attendees a dime even for the lunch, cold drinks and snacks throughout the day. A quick breakdown: Blog Sponsorship - $25 Bronze Sponsorship - $100 Silver Sponsorship - $500 Gold Sponsorship - $1500 Platinum Sponsorship Opportunities- $3000 Sponsorship Levels Blog Sponsorship. $25 prepaid. o Your Blog title, linked image, and contact info on the official SQL Saturday Baton Rouge 2014 website. Bronze Sponsorship. $100 prepaid. o Your corporate image/logo on the conference brochure o Any of your corporate materials (notepads and pens, fliers, gadgets, swag) inserted into all 500+ conference bags. o Your corporation linked image, and contact info on the official SQL Saturday Baton Rouge 2014 website. Silver Sponsorship. $500 prepaid. o Bronze + o Booth space (Limited availability) 8 table, power, seating for two are available. You can decide whether to use the table or your own conference presentation foldout, though it must occupy the same footprint as the provided table. Height of conference banners should not be an issue. o Participation in the raffle at the end of the conference Briefly address all the conference attendees at the end of the conference and draw to give away a prize all attention to you! o The opportunity to present at a 45-minute vendor lunch session beginning during the lunch break. (only 6 available, first come first serve) These sessions are optional for registrants to attend while eating.
Gold Sponsorship. $1500 prepaid. o Silver + o A contact list of the pre-registrations for the conference, with attendee contact information, for registrants who opted in to being contacted by sponsors. o Two tickets for your corporation to the pre-conference banquet. (The Banquet will be sponsored by a single Platinum-level sponsor, see below). o **NEW** Only Gold sponsors or above can participate in the Baton Rouge User Groups Networking Night on July 9, 2014 in Baton Rouge at the Louisiana Technology Park. Perfect for corporations looking to recruit, attendees from the Baton Rouge SQL Server,.NET, IT Pro, SharePoint and Women in Technology groups will be there! Contact us for more details sqlpassbr@gmail.com.
Platinum Sponsorships. $3000 prepaid for each unique sponsorship. (Limited availability) o We are open to any creative one-of-a-kind sponsorship ideas exclusive to the Platinum Sponsorship level. o Annually, Platinum sponsors enjoy these creative marketing and recruitment opportunities! o You may also choose to sponsor multiple Platinum level opportunities at a discount. Get your creative minds together and see the below Platinum ideas: Platinum Pre-Conference Banquet Sponsorship - (Only one available) o Sponsor the annual pre-conference banquet in beautiful downtown Baton Rouge. The banquet is open to all speakers to attend, many of which fly in from around the country to speak at our event. Unlimited tickets for corporate personnel to attend. Microphone time to address the banquet. We can discuss presentation aids if necessary. A night of face time with the top-end tech speakers that are attracted by the conference! Platinum Prime Vendor Floor Space - (Only one available) o Prime, double-wide vendor booth placement, directly adjacent to the registration table. All 550+ attendees will see your booth first! All other vendors will receive a single 8 table. In years past, this vendor has brought a ceiling-height booth foldout display. (see picture above) Power and ample floor space will be available to all booths. What would you do with your booth zone? Last year, a sponsor ditched the folding table and brought in a carpet, couch and espresso machine. Another had a fastest Lego kit building competition.
Platinum Keynote + Lunch Sponsor - (Only one available) o Address the morning opening ceremony with a 15-20 minute Keynote address by your company s CEO/CTO/CIO or other notable speaker. In 2013, Ob Soonthornsima of Blue Cross Blue Shield Louisiana gave a well-received keynote to a packed auditorium about IT s role in coming healthcare industry change. o Also sponsor the conference lunch: exclusive signage and materials at the lunch tables. o Help us serve lunch while wearing your corporate Gear. o Guaranteed face time with all 550+ attendees on the day of the conference! Platinum Conference Booklet - (Only one available) o Prime sponsorship of the Conference Booklet and input to its printing - will help us defray the costs of printing 600+ color booklets, with a special color section for your company s information. o The large legal-paper schedule printout the piece of paper in highest demand for all attendees - will also feature your color logo prominently. o All Bronze level sponsors and above will have logos in the booklet, but only the Platinum Booklet sponsor s logos will be featured prominently, with dedicated pages that every attendee will read. o Sponsorship at this level will also allow us to upgrade the binding of the booklets. Let s discuss! Platinum Creative Opportunity (You tell us!) o Let s discuss! o Other wild ideas: Man a mid-afternoon ice cream or frozen lemonade giveaway. An all-day track on the schedule dedicated to your company s technology and/or your company s current job openings. A session on the schedule to meet and greet with your company s executives/celebrities with exclusive giveaways, book signing, etc.
The Raffle Your Key to Success! The biggest challenge with community events is capturing contact information for follow ups. Few attendees will have business cards, and having them hand write their info often leads to a 30% or higher loss due to inability to read what they wrote! We provide attendees with a set of pre-printed raffle tickets (see below) that will contain their name and email address; they are then able to put these tickets into the raffle box at each sponsor table to try to win a prize. This gives you 100% readability and 0% loss! It is also more effective than any other technique we ve seen for trying to capture contact information and that includes scanning their name badge. Because we want you to be successful all of our sponsorship levels include the requirement that you provide a prize of at least $100 in value, and that you provide a full color 8-1/2 x 11 flyers that highlights the prize(s) you are providing for the raffle. We provide the raffle box. We will have one table for all absentee vendors placed in the same areas with our onsite vendors. Raffle ticket collection will proceed through the end of the day. If someone from your team is present we ll ask them to draw the winning ticket, otherwise we ll draw the ticket. Attendees must be present to win. If there is a physical prize we ll give it to them, otherwise we ll forward you their contact information for you to follow up with (for license keys, etc). After the event we will mail you all the raffle tickets from your box. There may be duplicates; depending on how exciting your prize is attendees may contribute more than one ticket to your box but that s a good thing, they are willing to provide you their contact information in return for the chance to win.
Payment All fees must be paid in advance. Payment can be made through the SQL Saturday website via check or PayPal (which can process a credit card). Corporate checks are preferred and should be made out to Baton Rouge User Groups. SQLPASS will provide an official invoice for expense purposes. To register as a sponsor just visit http://www.sqlsaturday.com to fill out our sponsorship registration form. Event Logistics Registration for attendees opens at 7am, and the building should be open by 6:30am for booth setup. Vendors and sponsors should arrive no later than 6:30am. Sponsors with booths will be provided with table and two chairs, and access to a power strip. Tables will be located in the same area as registration and breakfast to make it easy for attendees to stop by your table. Please emphasize to your corporate representatives on site at the event that they should remain on site through the end of the day, so they can personally greet the entire conference attendance in the Auditorium, be photographed and present any prize(s) to raffle winners. Lunch will be provided to all attendees including sponsor attendees. All attendees from your corporation should register at SQLSaturday.com, including everyone from your booth team. This is so that we can have enough food available at lunch. Information about the SQL Saturday Pre-Conference Banquet will be made available soon. PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING DISCLAIMER: This is an independently operated local event. The SQL Saturday logo and the website for the event have been provided to the event leader at no cost by the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) as a service to the SQL Server community. Local event leaders are not authorized by PASS to negotiate contracts, make commitments, or act on behalf of PASS in any capacity. PASS assumes no liability for issues or problems that may arise from the event at any point in time.
Code of Conduct SQL Saturday Baton Rouge is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. This policy applies to speakers, staff, volunteers, sponsor and vendor personnel, booth teams and attendees. In general, prohibited conduct includes any abusive conduct that has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with another person s ability to enjoy and participate in the conference, including social events related to the conference. Persons who are the targets of, or witnesses to, hostile or harassing conduct should contact conference staff. Reports of hostile or harassing conduct will be promptly addressed. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Be careful in the words that you choose. Remember that sexist, racist, ageist, religious, and other exclusionary jokes can be offensive to those around you and are inappropriate for SQL Saturday events. Excessive swearing and offensive jokes are not appropriate for SQL Saturday events. Attendees violating these rules may be asked to leave the conference at the sole discretion of the conference organizers. Thank you for helping make this a welcoming, friendly event for all. PASS SQLSaturday Baton Rouge is an alcohol free zone. We have zero tolerance for alcohol use during the event. Social events related to the conference may have a different policy. Tobacco use is regulated by existing state, city and Louisiana State University campus regulations and can be used in clearly marked areas. Smoking is generally NOT allowed in or near buildings.