Part of your ROI is counted in RSVPs at some of the country’s biggest conferences, where the real business gets done after hours.
“Everyone here wants to be like, ‘Come to a party! Sit through a demo and you can see deadmau5,’” said John Devins, director of business development at Kansas City-based SOFTWarfare. “We don’t have deadmau5, but we also don’t have a demo.”
Devins spoke to Vendelux outside his party on the first night of RSAC 2025, a cybersecurity trade show in San Francisco. Inside this dimly lit tiki bar near Chinatown, a reggae band eased guests into a relaxed groove while the bartender poured generous Mai Tais.
“I wanna deal with someone I can get along with,” he added. “Let’s have fun.”
In the era of the mega-conference, large-scale B2B events have spawned a new sector: the after-conference party.
And just like the conferences themselves, these shindigs are expensive to throw and all about making those elusive connections that will carry your company (or career) into the next year.
Taking yet another page from the events that birthed them, the laid-back affairs are also needy beasts.
They require venues, caterers, registration forms, live entertainment, and all too often, an entirely separate badge pinned to your already existing conference badge. They’ve become such an indispensable part of the conference ecosystem that an entire website, conferenceparties.com, has taken it upon itself to pool them together, lest anyone feel left out. The site promises novices, ladder-climbers and hard-partiers at least one entry (if not two or three) into swanky rooftops serving warm quiche on behalf of successful brands.
For this year’s RSAC, conferenceparties.com lists nearly 200 auxiliary events from brands like CrowdStrike, Armis and Microsoft.
It’s probably a conservative estimate, considering that organizers must submit their events to the party aggregator if they want to be listed. The website is seemingly run by an anonymous man who calls himself a “system security type” on Bluesky. It’s not affiliated with any major conference, as evidenced by disclaimers at the bottom of every list, and it runs ads to sustain itself.
Nevertheless, it’s proof that off-site gatherings are now a major part of brands’ outreach strategy.
Below are some of the most memorable parties Vendelux attended on the first night of RSAC 2025:
Forcepoint
The Austin-based software firm held a welcome reception at the St. Regis Terrace—just one block from conference headquarters at the Moscone Center—from 6 to 9 p.m.
Though I RSVP’d fairly late, the woman at the desk waved me in without issue after seeing my name pop up on her screen.
The party featured a full buffet of stir fried noodles, miscellaneous hors d’oeuvres and tiramisu along with attentive waitstaff that picked up empty plates as soon as they were put down.
Guests gathered under an ample tarp to chat in between drinks and songs by the resident DJ, who played mostly electronic music.
The crowd consisted of older, established RSAC attendees, but with views of the San Francisco skyline and decent food and drinks, this event stood out for keeping people in place for hours.
Trellix x AWS
They may not be “supermodels all dancing ‘round a pharaoh’s tomb,” but these engineers sure found a way to shimmy just yards away from some of the world’s finest modern art.
Trellix x AWS held their “RSA Kickoff Party” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, right next door to the St. Regis.
This party had it all: multiple bars serving mid-shelf liquor, buffet selections with two different kinds of empanadas and a lively cover band named The Party Crashers.
“I flew them in from Los Angeles,” Trellix Head of Global AWS Marketing Jennifer Michel told me before she was whisked away for a pending matter at the guest check-in counter, where the iPads prompting guests to verify their RSVPs via email reminded me of the expo hall a block away.
The band performed its way down a list of millennial party hits from the likes of Calvin Harris and Kesha, stopping only briefly to exchange lead singers.
A couple dozen people stood raptured by the group’s charisma, occasionally busting out moves of their own. Upstairs, the talkers sipped their drinks and pondered their next moves, most of which involved ordering Lyfts (or Waymos) back to their hotels.
SOFTWarfare
SOFTWarfare’s “Tiki Time by the Bay” party ran the latest, with the reggae band jamming and the passion fruit cocktails pouring until 11 p.m.
The Bamboo Hut was, by far, the coziest venue of the night. Birds of Paradise fronds arched over neon signs, leading to a dark, narrow bar with a few friendly faces.
Outside, a rented food truck whipped up tostadas and burritos all night long.
Unfortunately, this party was beset by a couple obstacles. Number one, brands like Forcepoint and Trellix had already paid a pretty penny to host their events a stone’s throw from the conference venue, siphoning off any guests who would have otherwise hopped on a bus to a different neighborhood. Number two, the later start time of 8 p.m. may have deterred some early birds.
Trying to take the sting off the low head count, Devins, the company’s events guy, told me: “It’s experiential! There’s a guy in there from Amazon, he’d be getting hounded at any other party.”
Another SOFTWarfare employee confided in me, “Mondays are always iffy at RSAC. People are just getting here and they think they want to go out, but then they realize they don’t.”
By 10 p.m., only about 20 people had made it out, but Devins already had his sights set on Tuesday’s happy hour.
