AWS re:Invent Guide for the new attendees — Part 1 Logistics

9 min readOct 26, 2023

It’s that time of the year again when you gear up for one of the biggest tech events in the world. Soon, you will be rubbing shoulders with nearly 60,000 attendees in Las Vegas, walking off your Thanksgiving feasts.

If you have never attended one in person, it can be an intense and immense experience. Some pre-game planning is very much recommended, so here’s a guide with information that helped me as a first-time attendee last year.

The guide is divided into two main parts: Logistics and the actual content of re:Invent. I will probably update it a few more times in coming weeks.

Hotels

There are six event hotels:

Caesar’s Forum: Activities include breakout sessions, content hub, and meals.
Encore: Activities include breakout sessions and bookable meeting space.
Wynn: Activities include breakout sessions and meals.
The Venetian: Activities include breakout sessions, registration, Expo, keynotes, content hub, and meals.
Mandalay Bay: Activities include breakout sessions, registration, content hub, and meals.
MGM Grand: Activities include breakout sessions, registration, content hub, and meals.

If your budget allows it, I recommend staying up in the north, near The Venetian, as that’s where most of the activities take place.

There will be free shuttles running between some hotels that are more than a 15-minute walk from one another. Depending on the time of the day, this can take a while. Campus monorail service is available between MGM and Caesars Forum. Last year, I spent most of my time at Wynn, The Venetian, and Caesar’s Forum. I made a detour to Mandalay Bay, but then got lost for about an hour and just called it a day before hopping on the shuttle bus back up north.

For those new to Sin City, it’s one of the few places left in the USA where they still allow indoor smoking. Spending most of the week indoors in the arid Nevada region can be rough on your respiratory system, so this map shared by an AWS community builder is very helpful to avoid as much smoke as you can while traveling through The Venetian. You can find the map here: Survive AWS re:Invent by Avoiding the Worst Air in Vegas — Now with Maps

If you are relying on Google Maps to estimate the time of travel, you are not going to make it on time based on those apps. They only show the time it takes to get from one hotel entrance to another, but navigating the conference areas often requires additional travel within the hotel, including navigating the labyrinthine Vegas casinos and dealing with frequent bottlenecks, especially at places like The Venetian. Make sure to plan enough time to travel from one session to another.

If you are arriving a bit early on the weekend before re:Invent, I highly advise you to familiarize yourself with the layouts of hotels as much as you can. For instance, Wynn and Encore are connected, as are Caesar’s Forum and The Venetian. Look for where the conference areas are located in each hotel and pay attention to the floors.

Last year there were up to 60k attendees, and I imagine this year it’ll be similar, if not more. re:Invent is very well organized with many guides (with distinctive shirts and flags) placed all around the event sites, but it can be a stressful and chaotic event, so take care of yourself, take a rest if you need to, and be nice to the hardworking staff and other attendees.

Tacos, sliders and chicken fingers will be widely-available choices

Food

For registered re:Invent attendees, breakfast and lunch will be provided, as well as endless snacks (fresh cookies! Ice cream!) at various event sites. I believe there is an option to order special meals if you have dietary restrictions. Just FYI, if you are new to Las Vegas: most hotels on the strip won’t have microwaves or coffee machines in your rooms.

There will be buffet options as well as take-away boxes because you might find yourself running from one session to another and don’t really have time to sit down for a meal between sessions. PSA: stay away from the boxed lunches at The Venetian. They don’t believe in spices.

Last year, I only ate at Wynn and The Venetian, and at Wynn, they were private events, so the food was great. The Venetian buffet options were good, too. Some companies held exclusive events in various restaurants located in The Venetian/Palazzo last year during the day.

Make sure to eat and drink regularly throughout the day. There will be water refill sites and snacks in many different places.

Now, some people worry about being able to afford dinner as Vegas can be quite costly. Worry not, there will be a lot of sponsored dinner events at quite fancy places, so sign up and choose your pick each night. re:Invent Parties 2023 — Unofficial list of AWS re:Invent Conference and Vendor Parties (conferenceparties.com) You really don’t have to spend any extra money for food at re:Invent.

Wash/Sanitize your hands often. I…admittedly shook way too many hands before stuffing my face everywhere last year and ended up with something. I mean, a lot of people did. So learn from my (disgusting) mistakes and avoid making it a super spreader event!

Clothes

Comfortable shoes: This is one common element you will see being mentioned in many different guides. I repeat: BRING COMFORTABLE SHOES. You will be walking a lot for something like 12+ hours a day, and by the end of the day, your feet will thank your wise sartorial choice.
Business casual tends to be the attire of choice for those in more business-oriented/client-facing roles, but also the usual techbro attire of choice — slacks, sneakers, and a hoodie is also popular and acceptable as well. Vegas around this time of the year can be a bit chilly, but the event sites will be warm, and you will also be running around from one session to another, so dress in light layers.
For night events, you might be going to fancy places, so while most places won’t be enforcing dress codes for re:Invent events, perhaps you might want to bring something more upscale. Replay, the grand finale of re:Invent on Thursday night, will be held outdoors where it can get quite chilly. The jacket they give out at re:Invent won’t be sufficient, so I suggest bringing a warm jacket.

Packing

COVID test kits + prescription meds: If you are coming from abroad with no health insurance in the USA, make sure you bring emergency medical supplies and also consider bringing prescriptions because I found Vegas airport TSA tends to be stricter than other places. I recommend traveling anywhere with an arsenal of first aid kits to treat various ailments. (I can go more in-depth about this if needed)
Chapstick/lip balm + Moisturizer: You may not bother with a beauty routine back home, but in Vegas, it is a part of the survival routine. It will be dry, so slather on some emollient!
Travel plug adapters: 110V is used in the USA. Check the voltage of your electronics-oftentimes, a converter is not necessary for big electronics/chargers since they allow dual voltage, but just a simple adapter suffices.
Earplugs: If you have sensory sensitivity or are just plain ancient like myself, it can get very loud in common areas and at re:Play. My hearing somehow survived a decade+ of stage front mosh pits, and it would ruin my street cred to lose my hearing at a conference.
Portable charger for your phone: You will be using your phone a lot and most likely will be out all day. While there are power outlets available for some sessions, it’d be wise to carry around a portable charger to juice up.
You can order stuff online (::cough:: Amazon) to your hotel, so if you’re coming from abroad and ordering some things, consider bringing a bigger (empty) luggage or a duffle bag to take them along with swag back home.

SWAG

There are four main places to get swag:

Expo: the obvious choice. There will be many ways to get swag, from traditional scanning your badge, playing darts, shoving money in the wind machine thing, to solving a Rubik’s cube. Now, in my experience, the bigger the conference, the less value swag tends to be because companies are trying to reach as many people as they can, so the price point has to come down. Most common swag tends to be t-shirts, tote bags, stickers, and socks. Having said that, there are some grand prizes you can win. Popular prizes tend to be Lego sets, VR headsets, keyboards, but I’ve seen someone win a nighttime helicopter ride in Vegas, so you never know what’s going to be offered.
Private events: There will be many sponsored private events during re:Invent, especially around The Venetian and Wynn. Some of them will provide swag bags, and since they are smaller events, the items tends to be of higher value like tumblers, water bottles, high-quality notebooks, etc.
re:Invent registration/certificate lounge/AWS Village: Last year everyone got badges, hoodies, stickers, AWS credit, etc. for free. There were also a limited number of exclusive SWAG. Certificate lounge swag tends to run out quickly, so grab them as soon as you can.
Random places: Last year, The Venetian had a claw machine on the third floor with a snack bar, which included Echo, Kindle, socks and stuffed animal keychains as prizes. I also managed to grab an AWS-branded Columbia windbreaker at a random spot. re:Play also had a human claw machine but the line was too long and the SWAG was…not great. I have read about people getting some other swags as they boarded re:Invent buses to go between event sites, at random sessions, so I don’t know the logic behind where you can get them, but if you have time, check for popular activity sites. Finally, As I navigated my way through the event, I spoke with several people and was gifted some SWAG along the way. So you never know.
Technically NOT a SWAG (stuff we all get) but you can also win “daily prizes” by playing at Rec Center, which will be hosted at Mandalay Bay this year.

Just a reminder: Nothing is free. When you go up to these booths, they will scan your badge, which will give them access to your info, phone number, and email address. You might get solicitation emails and messages. Also, try to be sustainable. If you work in tech, there are certain things you probably never have to buy, so no, you do not need another tumbler to collect dust at home. My maximalist lifestyle gets in the way of my sustainability aspiration.

Miscellaneous

Vaccination: If you are interested in getting vaccine shots, get the shots as soon as you can since it can take up to two weeks to build antibodies. You don’t want to bring “re:Invent funk” back home. 🤢
Cellphone/Mobile Connection: Wi-Fi will be widely available during re:Invent at event sites, but they might not be reliable 100% of the time. If you are coming from abroad without roaming/data plan, I personally think Wi-Fi should suffice, but there is an option to pick up a prepaid sim card for the week. Also, consider using Google voice for cheap(free?) calls within the USA.
Business cards: I had a deck of business cards last year that I had stressed out about the night before my flight to re:Invent and ended up not giving out a single one. Well, I finally ditched it one night and someone asked for one an hour later.
Most of the time, I relied on LinkedIn QR code to connect with new people, but as I said above, there can be a number of roadblocks for this option: not everyone would have a mobile data connection 24/7, your phone battery dying, and LinkedIn has a connection add limit per week (it should be fine for most people), so I suggest carrying at least a few business cards with you at all times.
One really neat thing about another conference I attended earlier this year was having LinkedIn QR codes printed on the back of badges. re:Invent doesn’t provide that option, but I saw someone printing their QR code on a sticker and have it on the back of their phone so that way it’s available at all times.
Looking for things to do in Vegas during your free time? Here’s my Las Vegas guide on things to do during re:Invent or on a day off.

Check part 2 to learn about the actual content of re:Invent.