20 February 2023
Budget, Social
Also Known As: Floor Presence.
Problem: You want to connect with developers within a certain community and have an opportunity to explain your product/service to them, ideally in the context of a conversation in which you can find out more about their issues, problems, concerns, budget, etc.
Context: The company wants to be present at an event that brings many people together under the umbrella of a particular identity (i.e., a tech-stack-centric conference) or region (i.e., a community event run for the immediate surrounding geographic area) or brand (i.e., a "destination" conference held in a popular city, like Las Vegas or Orlando), in order to connect with current and potential customers in a more interactive way.
Solution: You purchase booth space at a conference, and send a team to staff the booth during the conference's run.
Consequences: Participation in a conference event will often require somebody to be a point of contact for the conference; materials (such as the booth itself, printed handouts, any Swag, and so on) will need to be shipped to the event, schedules will need to be coordinated, and so on. This is a non-trivial commitment of time and energy, particularly so as the conference gets bigger (it's a much larger commitment of time to have a booth at AWS re:Invent than at a 250-person local community conference).
Manning the booth is also a non-trivial time commitment; ideally there should never be fewer than two people at the booth while the "vendor floor" is open (typically a 12-hour timeframe), so three or four people will be needed during each day of the conference. Additionally, some sort of Swag to help draw initial interest to the booth is helpful, but do not be surprised when many developers stop by just for the swag.
Note that a company's booth presence does not prevent or assume the company is engaged in Sponsorship of the conference; where sponsorship flexes on Reach, the booth focuses on interactivity.
Variants:
Pit crew need not (and arguably shouldn't be) members of the DevRel team; sales, recruiters, marketing folks, and anyone who is looking to start speaking at events and/or considering a role as DevRel make for great Pit Crew, as it allows them to "feel the vibe" of a conference event. Associate Developer Advocates should always do a stint or two as Pit Crew before being sent on their own to a conference event.