Field Notes: 14 Events, 6 Weeks, and the Art of Earning Attention

The fifth post in our Field Notes series, on what it actually looks like to run events season from the inside.

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Fourteen events. Six weeks, from September 22 to November 4. One very tired events team (aka me and Emma Hale from Planwell) and a frankly unreasonable number of shipping labels.

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Here's the lineup, for anyone who wants to feel tired on our behalf:

• 6sense Empower
• Pavilion GTM Week: Women's Summit
• Gong Celebrate '26
• Stage 2 Capital Breakfast (San Diego)
• Stage 2 Capital Breakfast (Los Angeles)
• Wednesday Women Breakfast
• Wednesday Women Dinner
• Sales Assembly Dinner, Boston
• Sculpt
• Women in Sales Virtual Experience
• Demandbase GO
• Women in Sales Leadership Retreat
• Pipeline Conference (SDR Leader)
• 6sense Breakthrough

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We had ups. We had downs. We had at least one moment where a hat press stared back at us like it had never met us before. But one thing held true at every single stop: the people who win at events are the ones building relationships and earning the attention of everyone in the room. 

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Not the biggest booth. Not the loudest banner. The people who actually connect.

So here's the good, the bad, and the genuinely difficult parts of running a season like this one.

The good: when earning attention actually works

Sculpt: the party started before the party

For Clay's Sculpt, our Campaign Studio team built a pre-event box with Clay that landed with attendees before anyone set foot on Pier 48. Kris posted about it (see the post here), and suddenly people were talking about us before the doors even opened.

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That's the whole point. A pre-event send isn't just a nice gesture. It shows people how we market ourselves, and it shows off what Sendoso can do in the most literal way possible: by doing it. By the time folks walked up to the patch bar, they already knew who we were.

Swag sponsor season: we amplified, the conference glowed

We were the swag sponsor at Pavilion's Women's Summit, Sculpt, Demandbase GO, Pipeline Conference and 6sense Breakthrough. Five shows where our job was to make someone else's event feel more memorable.

And honestly? That's just our day job in a different outfit. Every day, we help our customers break through the noise and build lasting connections. At these shows, we did the same thing for the conference itself. Turns out when you make the host look good, people remember who did it.

Pipeline Conference: right room, right people

This was our first time as swag sponsor at Pipeline Conference. And lo and behold, most of our conversations were with people who were already customers. Some marketers might panic at that. We took it as proof we were standing in exactly the right room.

The cherry on top: Hannah Baldo spoke on her very first panel, talking about what she does best: unconventional ways to break through the noise. First panel, zero chill, all substance. We love to see it.

Our BDRs: certified gifting obsessives

Our BDR team are first-in-class gifting experts, and they don't just talk about gifting. They believe in it. You could say their love language is gift giving. That shows up at every booth: they're not pitching a product they read about, they're sharing something they actually do every day. 

The bad: because of course something went wrong

I promised honesty, so here it is. Not everything was sunshine and perfectly pressed patches.

Stage 2 Capital breakfasts: the 8 a.m. gamble

Breakfast events are a calculated risk. You get people before their day gets away from them, which is great. You also get people whose day gets away from them before breakfast, which is less great. We had a few last-minute drop-offs. We knew the risk going in, we took it anyway, and the conversations we did have were worth getting up for.

Demandbase GO: the hat press that wouldn't

We gave away swag and personalized it on the spot with a patch bar. Great idea. Crowd favorite. Then there was the hat press: big, bulky, and about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

So the team switched to handheld irons for everything. And it worked out fine! But hauling a giant hat press to a show only to have it sit there looking important is a lesson in itself. (To the hat press manufacturer: we’re not on speaking terms right now.)

Pipeline Conference: the pass that got away

We had four passes. The fourth went unused, because life was life-ing. It happens. Not every empty seat is a failure. Sometimes it's just a Tuesday.

The difficult: what nobody puts on the recap slide

Here's the part that doesn't make the LinkedIn post. Running fourteen events in six weeks isn't hard because any one event is hard. It's hard because they overlap.

While one booth is being torn down, the next one's swag is somewhere on a truck. While you're writing follow-up for one show, invites for the next one need to go out. Breakfasts in two cities, dinners, a virtual experience, a retreat, and five swag sponsorships, each with its own audience, its own logistics, and its own way of going sideways.

And the stuff that goes wrong is rarely the stuff you planned for. Nobody's contingency plan says "the hat press will betray us" or "a shipment will take the scenic route." What saves you is a team that adapts on the fly, and partners who show up when it counts.

The part that actually went to plan: Events Hub

In a season where Murphy's Law had a standing reservation, I needed at least one thing to just work. Enter Events Hub.

I was able to get everything I needed out of it, which meant one fewer fire to put out while the rest of the season did its best impression of a group project.

When you're juggling fourteen events and the rest of your week is held together with handheld irons and optimism, having one part of the process you don't have to babysit is a gift. (Yes, pun intended. We sell gifting. It's in our contract.)

What we're taking into next season

• Start before the event does. Sculpt proved a pre-event send turns strangers into "oh, you're the Sendoso people" before day one.
• Make the host look good. As swag sponsor, our win was making five conferences more memorable. That's the same thing we do for customers every day.
• Customers in the room is a feature, not a bug. If the people at your booth already love you, you picked the right booth.
• Plan for the breakfast flake. Early events get drop-offs. Over-invite, confirm the day before, and accept it.
• Test the gear before you ship the gear. Hat presses, we're looking at you.
• Lean on your partners. When a show isn't going your way, the right people can help you turn it around. Build relationships with the people running the show, not just the people attending it.

Events are messy. They're expensive, exhausting, and occasionally sabotaged by heavy machinery. But they're still one of the best places to do the thing that matters most: earn someone's attention and turn it into a real relationship.

Next up: a behind-the-scenes look at how we're planning next year's events. In the meantime, if you see us at a booth, come say hi. We'll be the ones with the handheld irons (maybe).

— Danielle

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