AWS re:Invent 2024 Planning re:Cap

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Venues
• Planning & Logistics
  • Registration
  • General
  • Transportation
  • Sessions
  • Food & Drink
  • Additional Thoughts & Advice
• Conclusion

Overview

This year was my fifth time attending Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent. I have previously attended in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. The re:Invent 2024 conference was the best I have attended, and there are many reasons:

1. As always, the entire event was well-organized with only a few minor hiccups.
2. Almost all of the sessions I attended gave me valuable information.
3. Excellent networking opportunities throughout the entire conference.
4. Fun events during the conference that help you stay engaged.

Originally, I was going to write just one blog post to cover my re:Invent 2024 experience; however, I realized I have so much to cover, it makes sense to break it up into at least two posts.

In this post, I want to go over some of the planning and logistics that were done to help me make the most of this information-packed conference.

Venues

Throughout this post, when I mention a venue, I am referring to one of the many hotels that host conference sessions as well as the Caesars Forum, which just has a number of ballrooms for hosting meetings and events.

The following schematic map (original source) of all the hotels and venues that made up this conference:

re:Invent Campus

As you can see from the above map, the re:Invent conference has six main venues where you might attend a session, and these venues are not close to each other. For example, the distance between the Encore and MGM Grand in the above map is over two miles, and it could take nearly an hour to walk between them. Also, the venues themselves are large, for instance, Caesars Forum has 300,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, so it can take a while within a venue to get from one session to another.

I mention all of this because these distances impact your planning. If you don’t plan well, you will end up doing a lot of walking for little reward (besides the exercise).

I recommend the LINQ hotel because it connects to Caesars Forum and Caesars Forum connects to the Venetian. It also has access to the Las Vegas Monorail, which connects to a number of other hotels on the Las Vegas strip.

The Venetian

Planning & Logistics

Part of the reason the conference went so well for me this year is that I learned from past mistakes and planned ahead as much as possible.

Though the following points are somewhat specific to re:Invent, I am sure they would apply to any major tech conference that you may attend (especially if it is in Las Vegas).

Registration

1. Register as early as you can.
   • You can always get the latest information from the re:Invent website.
   • Fully complete your profile, including your preferred photo, this will make conference check-in faster.
2. Book your hotel through the re:Invent registration site.
   • The rooms are affordable.
   • The hotels are all close to the main venues where the sessions take place.
   • This time I stayed at the LINQ, it was nice because it was really easy to get to sessions and checking in and out was basically all automated.
3. Book your flight well ahead of time.
   • Since this conference takes place immediately after Thanksgiving, flights can fill up and leave you with limited options.
   • As with any flight, prices will go up the closer you get to the conference.

Once you have registration, hotel, and flight taken care of, it allows you to focus on planning for the conference itself. Scrambling last-minute to arrange travel and hotel is not fun.

Landing in Las Vegas at Night

General

1. Pack baggage wisely.
   • You will get SWAG at the conference, so understand you will likely need more baggage space on the return flight than you did for the flight to Las Vegas.
   • Get familiar with the baggage fees you will be charged by your airline, you may not want to grab certain SWAG if it is too bulky because it may not be worth the transportation cost..
2. Expect to be out of your hotel room the entire day.
   • Because of the distances involved, it is usually not practical to go back-and-forth to your hotel room.
   • Have a good-sized backpack and pack what you need for the day.
   • Don’t bother with a separate computer bag, you want to keep everything in your backpack due to the distances you will be traveling and the convenience of keeping your hands free.
   • Keep your badge in your backpack, you need it for everything; if you keep it in your backpack, you are not likely to forget it the next day.
3. Get familiar with how to use the hotel room safe.
   • Every hotel I have been in in Las Vegas has a safe that is simple to use.
   • If you have valuables that you would rather not bring with you during the day, but cannot risk losing, then put them in the safe.
4. Grab your conference badge as soon as you can.
   • There are locations set up at the airport where you can get your badge after you land.
   • On the Sunday before the conference, the main registration is open for you to get your badge and SWAG, but note that these close somewhat early, so if you have a late Sunday flight, your only option may be the airport locations.
   • You can usually get your badge pretty quickly on Monday morning if you go early enough.
5. Track your receipts.
   • I snap pictures of receipts as soon as I get them.
   • It is easy to lose track of physical receipts at such a large and long conference.
   • If you have pictures of all your receipts, it makes reimbursement much easier.
6. Get sleep when you can.
   • After a long day at the conference, it may be tempting to scroll your news feed or watch some YouTube videos, but I suggest keeping that to a minimum and just go to bed as soon as is practical.
   • Have fun, but don’t have too much fun. A hangover is never enjoyable, but especially at re:Invent.
   • There is a lot of information to process from the sessions, and if you are exhausted it is hard to keep focus.

My Room at the LINQ

Transportation

Taxi Rates

1. Plan to take a taxi to your hotel.
   • You can take rideshare, but Las Vegas has a very organized system for getting people to and from hotels via taxi.
   • Taxis are supposed to have a set rate to get you to hotels and back to the airport.
   • Though I haven’t used it in Las Vegas, the Curb app could be useful for getting a taxi.
2. Consider getting a Las Vegas Monorail pass.
   • The re:Invent conference technically supplies free access to the monorail, however, that is only for certain times and at certain stops, so it isn’t always practical.
   • The monorail doesn’t go everywhere in Las Vegas, but it does connect a lot of the relevant venues for the re:Invent conference.
3. Leverage the conference buses between venues.
   • AWS provides a bus service between key venues.
   • Though this option can be convenient, the buses have to deal with traffic like anyone else, so if you need to get somewhere quickly, walking might be faster.
4. Plan to do a lot of walking.
   • Wear comfortable shoes.
   • In many cases is it faster to walk to your destination than take a taxi or rideshare.
   • The conference buildings are large and sessions take place over many floors, so there is a lot of walking just within the conference venues.

The following is a map (original source) of the Las Vegas Monorail:

Las Vegas Monorail Map

Las Vegas Airport Tram

Sessions

re:Invent 2024 Matt Garman Keynote

1. As soon as a session catalog is available on the re:Invent website, you should go through the session catalog and flag the sessions that you want to attend.
   • Sessions are available to browse before you can reserve them.
   • Reserving the sessions you want to attend is critical, because if you haven’t reserved a session, you may not get in (and may need to wait a long time to see if you can get in).
2. Monitor the session catalog and reserve your flagged sessions as soon as registration opens.
   • Popular sessions fill up fast.
   • If you have contacts at AWS, they can sometimes find out a rough idea of when the sessions will open.
3. Book all sessions for a given day at one venue (e.g. be at Caesars Forum for the whole day).
   • It can be confusing to move between venues if you haven’t been to Las Vegas before.
   • If you must move between venues, give yourself an hour to get from one venue to another.
4. Give yourself plenty of time between sessions.
   • Even within the same venue, give yourself 45 minutes between sessions.
   • Session presenters usually are willing to stay after the session and take questions, so you may end up staying late after a session.
   • Reservations for sessions end 10 minutes before the session starts, so you want to be at your next session 15 minutes before it is supposed to start.
5. Consider attending interactive sessions.
   • I personally prefer Workshops, Chalk Talks, or Dev Chat sessions.
   • In Chalk Talk and Dev Chat sessions, they expect to get questions from the audience, which can help keep everyone engaged.
   • Workshops are a great way to get hands-on experience on a topic and you usually have access to experts on the given topic.
   • Workshops, Chalk Talks, and Dev Chats are generally not recorded. I figure I can always watch the recorded sessions outside of the re:Invent conference.
6. Make time to attend the Expo.
   • There are a huge number of vendors at the re:Invent Expo.
   • It is good to look ahead of time and see if there are any specific vendors you are interested in having discussions with.
   • If SWAG is important to you, you can get a lot of it at the Expo.
7. Plan your schedule as much as you can.
   • It is best to schedule meals, free time between sessions, networking time, and time to visit the Expo into your schedule.
   • It is good to have your entire schedule in one place, whether it is in the conference app or your personal calendar. That way you don’t miss anything.
8. Figure out how you would like to take notes.
   • I usually use my laptop to take notes and I use an app that can sync my notes to the cloud.
   • It helps to take pictures of important presentation slides, these are good to refer back after the session.
   • I end up taking a lot of notes because there is usually a lot of useful information.

re:Invent AI Agent Workshop

re:Invent Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & AI Workshop

Food & Drink

Hot Breakfast Offering

1. The conference provides breakfast and lunch.
   • Food in Las Vegas is expensive, so take advantage of this option when practical.
   • The hot food is generally of good quality.
   • The grab-and-go lunches are also not bad.
2. There are often snacks and coffee available between sessions.
   • There is usually a variety of snacks to choose from.
   • The snacks are of high quality.
   • The coffee and drink selection is okay.
3. Most of the major conference venues have one meal hall.
4. By using the conference app, figure out ahead of time where the meal halls are located.
5. There are usually grab-and-go boxed lunches that you can quickly take and bring with you to your next session.
6. Have some personal snacks available.
   • Though the conference provides snacks, they aren’t always available between sessions.
   • Sometimes you may not have time to stop and grab a snack between sessions.
   • I sometimes will go to CVS/Walgreens when I first get to Las Vegas and get some snacks/bottled water that I can have available in my bag/room.
7. Find free options for your dinner.
   • If you network with folks, you can usually find out about evening events where vendors are providing food and drinks.
   • Not only do events like these allow you to get a good deal on food, they allow you to network with other amazing people at the conference.
8. Mind your alcohol intake.
   • Alcohol is everywhere in Las Vegas, and oftentimes the mixed drinks are of high quality (and strong).
   • At networking events, it is easy to consume more alcohol than you realize.
   • You don’t want to try to do a workshop session while nursing a hangover.

The following are some quick snapshots I took of the different snack offerings:

Session Break Coffee

Session Break Snacks

More Session Break Snacks

Additional Thoughts & Advice

AWS Community Builders

1. Become a member of an AWS-related community, such as AWS Community Builders.
   • These communities can sometimes have re:Invent registration discounts besides their other perks.
   • You can usually get details about potential meetups at re:Invent through such communities.
2. Focus on the conference, that is why you are there.
   • Las Vegas is a fun town, but if you want to explore Las Vegas, I recommend coming early by a couple of days or leaving late by a couple of days.
   • It is difficult to work in exploring Las Vegas as well as attending the conference.
3. Attend re:Play
   • The re:Play event happens on the Thursday night of the conference.
   • There are usually multiple musical guests at the event.
   • Many games are set up that you can play.
   • There is plenty of food and drink.
   • Transportation to and from the event is provided by AWS and it is all well-organized.
   • It is a really fun end to the conference.

re:Invent re:Play Venue

re:Invent re:Play Weezer Concert

re:Invent re:Play Zedd Concert

re:Invent re:Play Food

Conclusion

As you can see, to make the most of re:Invent takes a lot of planning, but it is worth it. If you have never attended re:Invent before, or if you are just looking to make the most of the next time you attend, I hope you have found the information in this post useful.

If you are an engineer who works regularly with AWS, I strongly encourage you to attend re:Invent at least once.

In the next post, I plan to go over some session highlights from re:Invent 2024 and why AWS cloud engineers should consider attending this conference in person.