It’s the last day to enter your submission to host an official Side Event at Disrupt 2025. If you’ve been debating whether it’s worth the investment, here’s the math: tens of thousands of founders, investors, operators and partners will be in San Francisco, and Side Events are where like-minded communities actually come together, compare notes and do deals. The application closes today — no exceptions.
Why Side Events are important for visibility and deal flow
Side Events: the open canvas of the conference. The main stage, however, is the headliner; it’s around the margins of such events that relationships begin to develop. With more than 10,000 attendees coming to town, organizers have focused interest-led meetups to turn that density into touchpoints with substance. U.S. venture dry powder has been well over $300 billion, according to PitchBook, and in-person touchpoints continue to be a major way that partners vet new relationships. Events yield high ROI on pipeline and retention. Obviously, my perspective is biased, and I’m not going to try to change your mind — the Bizzabo report consistently shows that most marketers put in-person events near the top of channels for highest ROI on pipeline and retention.
- Why Side Events are important for visibility and deal flow
- What the organizers are looking for in proposals
- Proven formats that work for high-quality side events
- Maximize your ROI before the conference doors open
- Logistics, eligibility and essential ground rules
- How selection and promotion will work for Side Events
What the organizers are looking for in proposals
Quality over splash. The best have sharp focus: a clear audience in mind, crisp purpose and a format geared to interaction more than monologue. Be prepared to sketch out your theme, target attendee (target?!) profile, event format, venue size and accessibility into a 3-by-5-inch ad-copy space. Organizers favor events that are inclusive, free (or at least low-cost), and additive to the week as a whole — think knowledge exchange and community building, not straight sales pitches.
Curation weighs novelty and relevance. A 50-person fintech compliance clinic, a hardware demo crawl, or a climate-tech founder therapy session might be stronger than an all-purpose “networking mixer” if it meets a real need. And the ecosystem reports that Startup Genome produces argue that such niche clusters catch fire through a series of repeat, intentional convenings; use your Side Event to help anchor one of those nodes.
Proven formats that work for high-quality side events
Think of time-bounded forms that ask for depth rather than drift. Examples: curated roundtables (8–12 seats per table with facilitators on a specific topic), reverse pitch sessions (operators pitching problems to founders), live teardown workshops (product/go-to-market/fundraising), lab or office tours for deep-tech, and small “failure forums” under Chatham House Rule. Some of the other biggest tech weeks are known to limit their fringe programs and/or after-parties to 100–200, period, keeping quality high — and waitlists all the stronger.
If you have a demo-heavy meeting, keep it to three to five presenters and ensure at least half the time is for Q&A and open floor. For social events, attach them to a purpose: a hiring happy hour for AI infra engineers, or a post-panel salon wherein two experts challenge each other’s theses.
Maximize your ROI before the conference doors open
Define success metrics early. Goals you probably share: qualified leads, tailored partner intros, press briefings, user research. Map your invite list to those goals; the very best Side Events are “invite first, with a handful reserved for walk-up registration” events. Break up your outreach by segment: Speakers and V.I.P.s get confirmation with white-glove service; genial attendees — 40 to a card in your wallet’s pocket sleeve — get e-calendar-friendly reminders, as well as clear turning-point instructions.
On-site, run like a product launch: a tight run of show, clear wayfinding and a host team trained to make introductions. Follow up 24–48 hours post-event with notes, materials and next steps. Both HubSpot and Forrester have pointed to the outsized ROI of swift, personalized follow-up on conversion — think of your event as the top of a well-constructed funnel.
Logistics, eligibility and essential ground rules
Walkable or transit-accessible from the main campus. Make sure you are ADA-compliant, that you have good Wi‑Fi, and a capacity plan based in reality. If you will be serving alcohol or holding hardware demos, obtain the proper permits and insurance. Make sure that conversation is kept vendor-agnostic as much as possible, and if you are talking about a product or service, pair it with practitioner voices or case studies.
Most events will need a lead organizer at minimum, an on-site lead and a brief risk and safety plan. Family-friendly and accessibility-first proposals rate high. If you are going to charge a fee, be able to justify it based on the programming offered — and not swag or open bars.
How selection and promotion will work for Side Events
Official Side Events are listed in the official schedule, featured in attendee emails and shown on the event app’s map and filters. Exceptional programs typically receive co-promotion by organizers with social spotlights and themed roundups. You do production; the conference does discovery. That division of labor is what makes Side Events scale better than pop-ups on both attendance and relevance.
If you’re on the fence, consider this a forcing function. The scarcest commodity at a major conference is concentrated attention. A well-run Side Event deserves it — by making a space where the right people, talking about the right problem, can actually hear each other. Send a direct, well-intentioned proposal now — get together with the one you love on your own community lot.