---
title: "I'm speaking at DevRelCon!"
date: 2024-05-24
desc: Come to NYC if you want to hear me talk about developer relations.
tags:
  - devrel
  - speaking
hero:
  ai: "graphic credit: DevRelCon"
  file: ../xedn/dynamic/d724eaf3-65f6-481a-9dbf-7e3ad3c3e789
  prompt: "A graphic describing Xe's talk at DevRelCon in NYC about guerilla event planning"
---

I'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking at DevRelCon in New York City this year! I'll be talking about guerilla event planning on the side of larger conferences. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you there! You can save $50 by using [my coupon code](https://ti.to/mlh/devrelcon-ny/discount/Xe) when you register.

I plan to get a recording of my talk and post it on [my talks page](/talks) after the event. If you can't make it, you can still catch the content later!

Hope to see you there!

## Abstract

When you’re going out in force at a bigger event for developer relations stuff, you tend to want to have a booth. A booth allows people to have a place to come and bother you, and it also gives your employees a place to stash stuff at a conference. Booths have very low conversion rates, but at the same time, they are the main way that the conference makes money.

Today we’re going to tell you our secret to how to get more conversions from less effort: sponsor the conference but decline the booth, create a private event, hand out swag people will actually use, and go where the people are. It’s infinitely more effective and saves infinitely more sea turtles from suffocating to death due to your cheap plastic swag clogging their airways.

Why chain yourself to a booth when you don’t have to? You can staff an event with just a couple people without the booth looking sad and empty. A sad booth is so much worse than no booth.
