Event Host FAQ
Mar 15, 2022
Event Host FAQ
Table of Contents
Application - How to Host a Tech Week Event
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Honolulu Tech Week?
Honolulu Tech Week is an “unconference” — a week of events hosted by various members of the broader tech community under the umbrella of “Honolulu Tech Week”. Tech Week is an opportunity to showcase what makes our respective tech community special from startups to large enterprises and organizations, meet people from across the industry, and learn from the best founders, executives, engineers, and companies.
What is the best way to participate in Tech Week?
The best way to participate is to host an event! Hosting an event during the Tech Week dates is a great way to get exposure for your brand and directly connect with the Honolulu Tech Week audience. We will list all approved events on the master calendar of events and drive visibility.
What are the benefits of hosting an event during Honolulu Tech Week?
Drive awareness and business for your company, brand, product, service, or meetup.
Bring together your existing community, team, clients and partners.
Recruit and retain top tech talent into your company or organization.
Give back by growing Honolulu and Hawaii’s technology ecosystem.
Have your event placed on the Honolulu Tech Week website and official event calendar.
Reach thousands of Tech Week sign ups and tens of thousands of views.
Our team helps with content creation and distribution, event promotion and registration software, and introductions to venues and other partners of Honolulu Tech Week.
Note: If you’re a Honolulu Tech Week sponsor (or potential sponsor), please reach out first at aloha@honolulutechweek.com and we’ll provide you concierge help with event planning below.
If I host an event, what am I responsible for and what is the Tech Week team responsible for?
As an event host, you are responsible for coming up with your event idea, organizing the event and covering costs, and co-marketing it. The Honolulu Tech Week team will help with marketing and promotion, software and services, and event planning advice and intros, but event hosts are ultimately responsible for the success of their events.
If you become an official event host of Honolulu Tech Week, we will help promote your event via email and social media by driving visibility across the broader Tech Week registrants, which will include a community of over 1,000+ people and thousands more via our Community Partners, and featuring your event on the main Tech Week calendar. We will create basic digital content for you e.g. Event Announcement and Speaker Announcements, provide free guidance and feedback on event planning, and make intros and connections to venue spaces and co-hosts if needed. Finally, you will also get access to the official Tech Week logo and branding.
Who organizes Tech Week?
Honolulu Tech Week was initially organized, seeded, and sponsored by Aloha Equity. We have been joined by a group of growing community partners, sponsors, and ambassadors. It is ultimately made possible by the event hosts from across the industry who participate. The Honolulu Tech Week team’s role is to streamline the process for creating events and driving event visibility to make each week as successful as possible.
Can I be a Tech Week sponsor without hosting an event?
Yes. If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities but do not want to individually host an event, please reach out to aloha@honolulutechweek.com. Sponsors of Tech Week will be featured as sponsors for Tech Week as a whole and for events specifically hosted by our team.
Application - How to Host a Tech Week Event
Come up with an event idea and then submit your event proposal to us here. The Honolulu Tech Week team will review and approve event proposals to ensure there is a balanced distribution of event types and times. We will work with you to maximize your specific goals for your event. We often recommend working with a co-host, for example a tech company doing a panel with a customer and partner. Events will be marketed under the Honolulu Tech Week umbrella.
Decide what type of event you want to host / co-host.
Any type of event is possible, but below are some popular options:
Speaker Panel: curate a panel of speakers around a specific topic and moderate the discussion (i.e. “Funding Paths for Hawaii Based Startups”). This format tends to be the most popular.
Branded Experience or Product Launch/Demo: if you have a product to showcase, consider a branded experience. (i.e. “eSports Tournament hosted by ACME Gaming & Hawaii Academy”).
Happy Hour: a lightweight option is to host a happy hour for a specific audience (e.g. “Female Tech Founders Happy Hour”).
Coffee/Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner: host an event over a meal for a more intimate gathering. These are often either invite-only or gated (so organizers can curate the audience), but allow us to market your event and build brand awareness on the HTW site and official event calendar.
Other: other popular options include hackathons, live podcasts, and activities e.g. Diamond Head Hike hosted by ACME Corp, etc.
As a host, you will have the opportunity to set attendance, gate registration, do a private or invite only-event, or a variation thereof.
Find speakers.
Speakers are not mandatory, but they are highly encouraged! Attendees love the opportunity to learn during Tech Week, and getting to hear from experts in the field is always a popular option. For example, if you are having a networking mixer, having a known headline speaker say some quick words, even if for 5-10 minutes, will help drive attendance to your event and makes for better marketing.
Pick a venue / location.
You are welcome to host anywhere, but we suggest you pick a venue that is in the suggested neighborhoods in Honolulu. These neighborhoods will act as hotspots to create density, and thus events in these areas will likely have higher attendance and lower attrition rates.
Honolulu: We have a special emphasis on the downtown Honolulu area including the Business District, Kaka’ako, and Ala Moana, extending out to Waikiki, Manoa, and surrounding areas.
Outside Honolulu: There will be some events on Oahu outside of Honolulu e.g. Kailua, Hawaii Kai. We have also received inquiries regarding events on other islands as well. While we recommend hosting events in Honolulu when possible, some events may be outside of it.
Depending on the event type, doing yours at your company or organization's offices or workspace can be really compelling for attendees.
The HTW Team has a list of Recommended Venues across Honolulu and nearby locations, from event spaces to restaurants and rooftop bars. Please let us know if you need a recommendation.
Propose a day and time.
Propose your ideal day and time. Once the Tech Week team reviews proposals, we will suggest any changes if we think there will be too many overlapping events that are targeting the same type of audience.
Create a budget.
As the event host, you are responsible for the costs of your event. Determine a budget that can cover for your event. If you are interested in splitting the costs, we encourage finding a co-host or sponsor for your event.
Please fill out the Event Proposal Form.
Once we receive, review, and speak with you on your event proposal, we will work with you to get your event page setup for marketing and registration, provide best practice guidelines and advice to maximize event success, and place your event on the Honolulu Tech Week website.
Recommended Venues
We recommend hosting events at your office space or a unique venue when possible, but also can make connections to these recommended venues.
Event Spaces
Entrepreneurs Sandbox, Kaka’ako
Coworking Hub Hawaii, Kaka’ako
Box Jelly Ward, Kaka’ako
House of Savon, Hawaii Kai
Treehouse, Kailua and Kahala
Ka Waiwai, Mōʻiliʻili
B-Side, Kaka’ako
Universities
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Hawaii Pacific University, Downtown
Restaurants & Similar
Try.Coffee, Kaka’ako
Honolulu Beer Works, Kaka’ako
The Gatsby, Kaka’ako
Talk Coffee, Kaimuki
Island Brew, Hawaii Kai
House Without A Key, Waikiki
Lei Stand, Chinatown
Bar 35, Chinatown
Next Steps - Setting Up and Marketing Your Event
The Honolulu Tech Week team will help you set up an event registration page on Luma with you as host so we can place it on the Official Honolulu Tech Week calendar. If your event will be “Invite Only” without a public event page, please note this in your submission where we request the URL.
Event description: Please include at least a paragraph long description of your event. Also include this line about Tech Week: "This event is a part of Honolulu #TechWeek - a week of events that bring together Hawaii’s tech ecosystem.”
Date/Time: Include the proposed event date/time (start and end time).
Location: Only include the neighborhood of the event, and not the exact address. Plan to reveal the specific address for the event in the body of your confirmation email to confirmed attendees down the road. This will prevent your location from “leaking.”
Tech Week logo: Logos can be found here. It can be placed anywhere in your event page graphic. If you need help, we can create an event page graphic for you.
Screen event attendees.
We recommend you ask registrants questions for filtering the guest list (i.e. company, title, Twitter, LinkedIn) so that you can more easily screen which registrants you wish to accept and reject.
Lead gen is a valuable part of Tech Week for hosts, and the best way to get the most out of that is by asking the right pre-qualifying questions to help you filter.
Plan to do your own marketing.
As the event host, you are responsible for co-marketing and filling your event. We will help to drive lots of awareness to your event, but plan your own marketing as well to make it as successful as possible.
How the Tech Week team helps:
Marketing: All approved Tech Week events will be marketed via our social media accounts and email, including speakers and key messaging.
Featuring on the Honolulu Tech Week calendar: All approved Tech Week events will be featured on the main Tech Week calendar which will be released in late July. We will follow up with more details then, but please hold off on large public announcements until we release the event calendar in August By coordinating the marketing push across all event hosts, we are able to drive greater visibility for everyone.
Content Creation: Our team can help (if needed) by providing event announcements, speaker features, and other digital content for distribution across social media and email. We will share this content both prior to and during Honolulu Tech Week in order to drive more awareness for your company and event.
Honolulu Tech Week website: All approved Tech Week events will be featured on the main Tech Week calendar, and we’ll do our best to feature all events on the Tech Week homepage.
Communicating RSVP Status to Guests / Confirmation Emails
Please plan to send 2-3 emails via Luma communicating with the folks that have signed up for your event. Leading up to the event, make sure you let folks know that spots are limited, and that you need people to tell you whether or not they can make it so you can get a clear sense of headcount. You want to avoid a situation where you think a bunch of people are coming, but a lot of them don’t show up.
If you have a gated event, please make sure you are communicating with the people that have registered for your event about their “RSVP” status.
Approve people you want at the event as soon as possible
Reject people you know aren’t a fit as soon as possible so that those folks can sign up for a different event, and not be left waiting to hear from you.
For people on the waitlist, make sure you send them periodic email(s) explaining that they are still on the waitlist and not yet confirmed in order to avoid confusion!
Account for attrition!
As you accept and reject people, keep in mind that because these are mostly free events (and many people signing up are out of your immediate network), there will be attrition at these events (likely between 20-40% the larger they are). Use your best judgment here and make sure you’re accounting for attrition and invite more than you think you have capacity for!
Capture content at your event!
During your HNL Tech Week event, make sure you are capturing photos and videos and reposting on social media, and use the Honolulu #TechWeek hashtag so people can find you and retweet your content!
We will also be retweeting people’s content so make sure you’re capturing your event + posting on social with the #HonoluluTechWeek hashtag