7 Ways To “Hack” Yourself Into Conferences For Free
on Nov 25, 2008 - 4:00 AM PSTWhen Timothy Ferriss came on Mixergy, he said meeting bloggers in person at conferences helped make his book a New York Times Best Seller. When Craig heard that, he brought up a good point. What if you’re a startup and can’t pay for a ticket? Or what if you work for a company that doesn’t see the value in buying you a ticket?
Here are some techniques for getting in for free, based on what I heard in my interviews and events.
Borrow a badge – Writer Sarah Lacy borrowed a speaker’s badge for the Web 2.0 conference from Marc Andreessen. She wrote about it in Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good, the book she talked about at this Mixergy event.
Copy a badge – I promised not to reveal his name, but a guest I met at a Mixergy event told me that he gets into top conferences by photocopying his friends’ badges.
Volunteer – Even if you’re willing to pay, TED is a notoriously hard conference to get into. When I interviewed Douglas Campbell, he told me that he got in by volunteering to help, which is how he met people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Offer to write – When she was out of work and couldn’t pay for a conference, Olivia Kuhn-Lloyd wrote to the organizer and offered to blog about the event. She ended up becoming good friends with the organizer.
Work the parties – When I interviewed Rick Calvert, founder of Blog World, he told me about the hard work he put into getting superstar speakers to his conference. The one place where you could see them all together was at the pre-conference party–which was free. Conferences always have parties.
Use someone else’s name – A friend (who I can’t name) told me that he gets into internet events in SoCal by telling people at the door that he’s me. He figures organizers often comp me a ticket for helping them, so he uses my name. I’m not condemning or condoning this method. Just reporting.
Offer to speak – My friend Tim Street gets paid to go to conferences because he speaks about online video, an especially hot topic right now.
Do you know other ways for ambitious people to get into conferences? Add them to the comments or email me.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
View Comments to “7 Ways To “Hack” Yourself Into Conferences For Free”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
November 26th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Awesome tips. The other way to get into cool events for free, is to organize one. Yea, it’s a lot more work and time, but the rewards for putting on an excellent conference with good buzz is priceless.
Find bar camp like events and just put it on. For example, I’ve organized Startup Weekend Columbus and Ingnite Columbus. I’m also organizing WordCamp Columbus. Some are free to begin with, but again, do it for the awesome networking.
November 26th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Everything has value associated with it. If you can’t get a badge via value trade (blogging, speaking, reporting, etc ) or payment, then you should not go. Thankfully, many conferences now post audio or video so a larger audience can be exposed to the information (which is only possible because of the paying attendees). Suggesting that people should lie or cheat to get in is irresponsible.
November 26th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
It is only getting into a conference, not breaking into a bank. Maybe someone who uses a great plan to get in and makes the contact of a lifetime gets called a “off beat genius”?
November 26th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I can’t speak for LA, and it definitely doesn’t work at Moscone Center (really tight security), but just crash the conference. When I lived in New Orleans I did it all the time provided it was a conference I wanted to attend. Usually I just wanted to hit the floor and network so I just grabbed an old badge and lanyard, stuck in one of my business cards in it and before I entered the Expo Hall, I grabbed a bunch of the free trade papers outside and placed them on my chest. Worked practically every time. Also, go with a crowd of people which makes it harder for the security folk to look at your badge fast enough. I remember one time I went to a radio trade show at the Hyatt New Orleans and actually impressed some of the attendees that I was crashing. They didn’t care! Only the security people cared. To this day, I still have a relationship with a guy from San Francisco who a few months after meeting him at that conference led me to start beta testing for Macromedia which led to my current strong relationship with Adobe. See? Crashing works!
November 27th, 2008 at 1:46 am
[...] Repairs on Space Station [PICS] Crystal Meth: Not bad for everyone [PIC] Does being right matter How to âhackâ yourself into conferences for free Rockets help build Chinese bridge higher than Empire State Building The Ultimate Blogger Writing [...]
November 27th, 2008 at 1:49 am
What about the ole “just walk in!” I’ve done this before – and sometimes not intentionally! I once was walking past LACMA, it looked like something cool was going on and I walked right into a private press event announcing BCAM with the Mayor and Eli Broad there mingling with a small group of press. I recently walked into the Founder’s Circle at the LA Opera by just walking through (they stop you to look for your membership card first). You have to look and act like you belong and no one will think twice.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:56 am
Thank you for all of the tips. I’m glad there are other people like me out there who can use all these helpful tips and advice. I really like how you mention to volunteer. It seems that as long as you can get yourself into the event, you will be able to network with at least 1 person. By making any contact, it may help lead to the next. Thanks for the alternative tips.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I agree with Sloane, just “walk in” works, I’ve done that before, just walked into a conference with a heard of people. Although I think the best way to attend is to make relationships with the conference organizers because it helps you building your name and can open up possible opportunities in the future. Also to convince the organizers to let you in for free you can volunteer to do a job during the conference that the organizers dislike…that will get you in for sure.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Any advice on hacking into TED2009?
December 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Lincoln, Douglas Campbell did it by asking to volunteer. Give it a shot.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Thanks Andrew. Yeah I’ve tried that and recently gotten an email saying that they no longer have a volunteer program. They use a staffing agency now because there were too many volunteers sneeking off to sessions.
Im still going to make it my mission to hack into TED. Ill tell you how it goes
July 6th, 2010 at 9:20 am
[...] 7 Ways To “Hack” Yourself Into Conferences For Free [...]