Having a great live re:Invent has a lot to do with your success rate at getting to see the sessions you want.

I was quite disappointed when I discovered that all the sessions I wanted to see were already fully booked 6 hours after reserving seats was possible for re:Invent 2022. I felt "lucky" that I could get on the "waiting-list" for 3 sessions...

But on Monday morning freshly arrived in Las Vegas I decided to use my "Lowlands-strategy". Lowlands is a popular music festival in the Netherlands with around 60.000 visitors and 5 big stages and a few smaller ones. If you want to see a good band play there, you have to go at least one hour before the starting time to the venue and camp there with the groupies until the show starts.

On re:Invent this strategy worked out perfectly for me. I never had a full room, because I was always near the front of the walk-up queue. Being one hour in the line did not feel like a huge sacrifice either. I often had my laptop with me and otherwise there was always someone to have a nice "preview"-chat with about the session we were waiting for.

The "downside" of the strategy is that the achieved number sessions per day could be a bit lower than you anticipated. I achieved 3-4 sessions per day this way. But hey I never expected to see any of them :-)

Details of the queue:

60 min before session - start forming 2 queues "walk-up" and "reserved". Try find a spot near a wall so you can give your back a rest.

30 min before session - start of allowing reserved seats

10 min before session - start of allowing in walk-ups

Note: After being let in, you can leave for a toiletbreak and come back in :-) Before being let in you can of course agree with your neighbours that you can have your spot back.

Note: Being on the "waiting-list" for a session does not mean you will have any priority when doors to the room are opened (30 minutes before the start of the session).

Note: If you have a reserved seat and come after 10 minutes before the start of the session: you will be sent to the end of the "walk-up" queue and probably not make it in.

Note: I hope this blog does not inspire everyone to adopt this strategy for next year's re:Invent, because I guess it doesn't work then....

Anyway hope to see you next year on re:Invent ;-)