Thread by @QuinnyPig

Sponsoring @awscloud re:Invent is the biggest "kiss the ring" exercise in the entire cloud industry; a thread.

First, some administrativia.

The slides are marked "Amazon Confidential" but are freely available and advertised for download on the re:Invent website. This is about as public as it gets.

Also, I do have a potential conflict of interest here; I also accept money for sponsorships (details at lastweekinaws.com/sponsorship/), so in some ways this is me trashing a competitor. It's not a huge deal and I'm amusing about it, but it's important to me to disclaim that.

Now then! This is two weeks of tomfoolery; one week in person, two weeks virtual. There are oh so very many sponsorship opportunities to be had.

Unlike in previous years, "how many people will attend" is conspicuously absent. 99% of attendees will be from the US. I'm hard pressed to identify company types other than the four they list.

The Emerald packages are $550K. The standing-room-only Showcase kiosk packages are $35K. The others are in between.

But where it really gets interesting / ridiculous is the add-on pricing. First, you have to buy one of the packages above first; they are not inexpensive. Then let's say you want to rent out a restaurant for an evening. BRING MONEY!

"Build a hands-on challenge that utilizes the Sponsor's technology" means "you can safely skip the AWS Jams at re:Invent; they'll be thinly disguised sales pitches."

(I'm *militant* about disclosing sponsorships; this feels slimy.)

"Give a 15 minute talk on the expo floor for $20K" is surprisingly reasonable. I'd love to get one of them myself to deliver my annual Keynote Rebuttal, but I'm not eligible.

"Why not?" you might reasonably wonder.

1. You must be a registered partner to sponsor.
2. @awscloud event sponsorships include a non-disparagement clause:

And it turns out that AWS Legal doesn't like clarifying questions. "Is it still okay to disparage your executives?" for instance.

@awscloud hates competition, and you're not allowed to make them look bad at re:Invent when they're busy making themselves look bad.

For $225K you can put your logo up at the start of the CEO keynote.

For $225K I fully expect @aselipsky to deliver the keynote dressed as Billie the Platypus.

For $50K they'll put your logo all over a hotel. For $85K they'll put your logo on a hotel keycard.

Y'know, if you have too much money in your marketing budget, we can talk about that instead of you just lighting it on fire...

But let's say you want to sponsor virtually instead and haven't been hit with the Sarcastic Money Stick of Venture Capital. What then?

Virtual sponsorships, of course. At the last re:Invent, the only publicity the virtual expo got was my Nature Walk. @awscloud should buy one!

$15K gets you a "brand awareness package," as demonstrated by someone with no market awareness who thinks that this is a compelling example of such a thing.

A great question. MDF is "marketing development funds" that AWS kicks over to partners for use on marketing. I know this because partners periodically use it to buy my sponsorships.

Additionally, @awscloud themselves are one of my best sponsors.

So that's basically what you can sponsor at re:Invent via AWS.

I'm sure we'll hear more about this as we get closer to Cloudapalooza.