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Yet Another re:Invent Guide - The Highly Opinionated Version

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By Martin 7 min read

I’ve been going to Vegas for a long time, usually at least once a year if not multiple times a year for nearly 20 years. And I started going to re:Invent back in 2014. Vegas, and especially conferences in Vegas, can be overwhelming and hard to know where to start. So instead of just giving all the information about what’s available, which you can find elsewhere, I thought I’d provide a highly opinionated version you can use to optimize your time there.

Flight Planning

  • You want to arrive the Sunday before and you want to arrive early enough so you can get your badge at one of the badge pickup spots. But just FYI, re:Invent is usually the week after Thanksgiving, and the Sunday after Thanksgiving (the one before re:Invent) is one of the busiest travel days of the year.

  • You want to leave Friday so you can go to re:Play Thursday night (the party at the end).

  • Book ASAP. There’s over 50k people fighting for a flight to an airport that isn’t a hub for Delta, United, or American, so there aren’t an infinite number of flights available. They get expensive. Try not to connect through a northern state in the winter.

  • Pack an extra bag like a duffel, you could end up with a lot of swag.

Hotels

  • The Venetian is preferred as it is the primary venue and has a direct connection to Caesars Forum (different than Caesars Palace), see planning below. If you can’t get The Venetian/Palazzo, try one of the hotels connected on the same side of Las Vegas Blvd. The Wynn is nice, but is a walk, Encore is even more of a walk. Even though they’re not the nicest hotels, Harrah’s or the LINQ are the next best options and have direct connections to Caesars Forum.

  • Availability comes and goes. Hotels that were previously unavailable might become available later, so keep an eye out in the re:Invent hotel portal.

Arrival

  • Go to the taxi stand. Don’t even bother trying to request a rideshare unless you want to wait for an hour. Taxis are also flat rate to Strip hotels.

  • As a second option, you could try scheduling rideshare, but the reality is they’re going to be sitting in a crazy long line to get into the parking deck. I’ve occasionally gotten lucky just walking up and getting a rideshare quickly, but it’s rare.

Conference Planning

  • You need to be ready to start scheduling the sessions the minute they’re available to be reserved. They will go fast. Look for the announcement email letting you know when you can reserve.

  • DO NOT PRIORITIZE SCHEDULING BREAKOUT SESSIONS. They show up on YouTube as quickly as the next day. Watch them on your flight home. I’d only recommend trying to get to ones you’re very interested in or have special presenters from big name companies like Netflix, the NFL, or Capital One who have mature, highly scaled, cloud environments and cutting edge engineering teams.

  • DO prioritize things you can only do while in Vegas including:
    • Hands-on Workshops (book them as soon as they open before they fill up)
    • GameDay/Jams - Gamified learning (again, they book fast)
    • Chalk Talks (live whiteboarding sessions)
    • Interactive experiences like the ones in the Venetian and Caesars Forum (fun sports experiences!)
    • Vendor expo for:
      • Swag (of course). Get there early before the swag is gone.
      • Unique opportunity to pepper your favorite vendors with questions. For example, you could go to the GitHub booth and ask if they’re still about two nines of uptime.
      • If you work for a large enterprise, your vendors will know you’re there and might offer you special swag or access to special events
      • Mini-sessions with vendors presenting on new products/features
      • Other misc fun experiences (one year Sumo Logic had actual sumo wrestlers there)
    • Free 5k at 6am after a long night of going out drinking…no? just me?

  • The Strip is LONG. The casinos are HUGE. So you should avoid casino hopping for sessions at all costs. If you must get to another session in another casino, getting from one conference area to another you should plan to take at least 30 minutes by shuttle or walking. If you’re not there for your reservation for a session 10 min before a session starts it’s going to the people in the walk up line (which is always full). So you need to have a 1 hour window to make another session in another casino even if you’re walking to a casino next door.

  • The Keynotes: It’s cool to go once, but unless you’re going to get there super early and watch it from up close, just watch the live stream. Also, after the keynotes are done PAY ATTENTION TO THE SESSION CATALOG, new sessions are added immediately afterwards.

Food

There’s plenty of food everywhere including snacks in the halls, drinks, and breakfast/lunch are usually pretty good. So really the only meal you should need to worry about is dinner, unless you get into one of the conference parties (see Fun Planning below).

Vegas is known for its buffets, so it’s honestly worth a splurge one night to go to a buffet on the Strip for dinner. I recommend the Wynn or Bacchanal at Caesars Palace. Those can get a wait though, so go early. Otherwise I recommend:

  • Tacos El Gordo
  • Secret Pizza at the Cosmopolitan…and while you’re at the Cosmo make sure to go to the Chandelier Bar and order The Verbena with a Buzz Button
  • In-N-Out on the LINQ Promenade (if you’re not from the west coast and don’t normally get it)
  • Battista’s Hole in the Wall (can’t personally vouch for this one, but it looks good)
  • Sushi Samba at the Palazzo…might be busy but worth trying

Fun Planning

After sessions are done, there’s lots of after-hours activities. You should start here. That is a well-updated list of all the re:Invent parties happening. There’s lots of good club venues, but a particular shoutout to Omnia, XS/Encore, and Tao. Make sure to register and get confirmations. If you forget to register for a party, don’t fret, a lot of times they have extra space.

If you’re an NFL fan, and especially get to re:Invent early on Sunday, I recommend going to Beer Park at Paris to watch the games.

re:Play

re:Play is the official AWS party at the end of the conference. It’s got over 50k people there but the individual activities and food areas are always way overcapacity/have long wait times. I recommend getting there 30-45 min before opening time and being one of the first in line to get in. You’ll get to try all the activities without a wait and get food. There’s only a handful of different foods in small food truck sized containers. So it’s probably not enough for dinner. You’ll want to eat before you go. If you’re interested in the musical acts that are performing, you can stick around for that, otherwise, I recommend taking off before the crowds get out of control.

It’s at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds far north on the Strip and requires a shuttle or other transportation, so plan for that.

Departure

A decent percentage of those 50k+ people will all be trying to leave Friday morning, so get to the airport early, especially if you want to hit one of the lounges, which will have crazy waits.

Misc

  • It’s a desert in the winter, it’s gonna get a little chilly as will the convention space. Bring a hoodie.
  • Bring a day pack for things like snacks, water, the aforementioned hoodie, etc
  • Bring a battery pack, your phone is definitely going to die
  • You’re going to be doing a lot of walking, wear good shoes
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