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PyCon 2013: Why should you become a sponsor?

… Or how to sell PyCon 2013 sponsorship to your team and boss!

As we round up the volunteers, activate the mailing lists, and get the community hyped up for another year of PyCon, there’s another group we need to engage: the sponsors. PyCon 2012 had an amazing outpouring of support from a record 133 sponsors, and with your help, we’re trying make 2013 another record breaker.

Sponsors are what make this conference possible. From low ticket prices to financial aid to video recording, the organizations who step forward to support PyCon in turn support the entire Python community. They make it possible for so many to attend, for so many to present, and for the world at home to watch along.

Along with the benefits sponsorship gives the conference and the community, we think they come in exchange for an excellent set of benefits to our sponsors. See our full prospectus at https://us.pycon.org/2013/sponsors/prospectus/.

Recruiting

What better place to find Python developers than a gathering of 2500 of them? In Silicon Valley no less. If you’re hiring, PyCon is the place to be.

The conference has long been a great way to find the talented developers so many companies are searching for, so much that we added on-site Job Fair to make it even easier. Some sponsors even host their own recruiting events! In 2012 alone, we had sponsors participating in the job fair that they received over one hundred resumes in under and hour!

Marketing

Getting your name and product out there through the promotional aspects of our sponsorship packages is a great competitive advantage. If your business is built on Python, you can get the attendees attention with our banner and print advertising options. Having a booth in our Expo Hall will allow you to reach out and get more face time with the community.

Given PyCon’s size and importance in the yearly conference calendar, people look to the sponsors to see who’s using and supporting Python. These are the organizations that attendees want to buy from and work for!

Visibility

Our expo hall is the place to be seen. Many organizations do product demos, hand out coupons and t-shirts, and engage their visitors by talking tech and sharing their experiences with Python. Some companies like to use their booth to interview PyCon’s talented attendees right then and there.

The expo hall is centrally located and gets a lot of traffic throughout the day, and for 2013 we've made changes to ensure even more visibility. We even heard from several sponsors that VCs and angel investors frequented the expo hall as well as our Startup Row!

Audience

PyCon’s ever diversifying audience puts your organization in front of a wide variety of people. From beginners to experts, PyCon draws attendees from those with zero experience all the way through a significant group of the contributors to the language itself. We also see people of all levels from many industries. From developers to managers, executives to owners, startups to big businesses, PyCon draws attendees from all sorts of places. Some organizations send entire teams, and in the case of many startups, the entire company may be there.

Competitive Pricing

When you consider the cost of conference passes that all packages include, we think we’ve put together a great value in each PyCon sponsorship package. Our smallest package, the Silver level at $4000, includes two passes valued at $1200! The Gold level includes five passes, a $3000 value. Each successive package includes more tickets. Keep in mind that these are full conference passes -- not just expo hall passes.
Personnel who will only be staffing booths do not get charged for passes to the conference - passes for employees staffing booths are complimentary and do not count against the attendee registration cap.

Small Business Discount

PyCon loves small businesses. From our long time small business sponsors to up and coming startups, we want to make sponsorship work for you. For Gold sponsorships and below, we give a 50% discount for any organization under 25 people. When you factor in the cost of tickets, that deal gets even sweeter!

Flexibility

If you want to help PyCon, we want to help you construct a sponsorship package that fits your needs. If a small booth would work better than a large one, perhaps we swap it in exchange for a larger program advertisement. For some organizations, a booth isn’t practical at all, but adding another conference pass may work better.

If you are interested in sponsoring PyCon, please contact conference chairman Jesse Noller at jnoller@python.org.

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