How to convince your boss to send you to a tech conference

So, you want to attend a tech conference. That’s great! After all, the whole industry revolves around peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. How else would cybersecurity experts hear about the latest threats, cloud engineers about better architectures, or programmers about that fancy new AI coding assistant?

However, it can often be tricky to get your employer to see the value of sending you. In your boss’s mind, the first thing they see is the price tags attached to the ticket, flights, accommodation, and food. They’re looking for the return on investment—and it’s your job to sell them on it.

In this article, we’ll provide some guidance on how to justify your attendance and make both sides happy.

• The golden rule: Attendance should be win-win
• The silver rule: Your boss usually has a boss, too
• Attend a tech conference for work: 3 steps to convince your manager
• How to write the perfect event proposal letter for a tech event
• Sample proposal letter: Attendance at AWS re:Invent
• What to do if you don’t get sign-off for a tech event
• Conclusion: You’re a champion, and you should feel proud

One of my favorite sayings is, “You should never sell sand in the Sahara; you should be selling water.” If you’re trying to pitch something that only benefits you, and not the other party, then you’re setting yourself up to fail. 

Both you and your employer should get something out of whatever tech conference you want to attend. If they don’t, pick a different event. Don’t waste your time trying to convince them that sand is worth their money.

Some examples of conferences that might not follow the golden rule include:

• Events where the cost significantly outweighs any benefit to the employer

• Events that don’t align in any way with your current or future work responsibilities

• Events that would leave the organization short-staffed during a busy period

This is an extension of the golden rule. Remember: As you’re trying to justify attendance to your boss, they’re thinking about how they’re going to sell it to whoever’s above them. The exception is if they’re a CEO or founder. 

Why is this important? It means you need to frame your attendance in a way that’s easy to sell to your immediate manager and whoever’s above them. Otherwise, your pitch is going to be a non-starter.

Alright, so with those two rules out of the way, let’s get into how you can start building your pitch.

Sounds basic, but everything starts with good research. It’s the foundation on which your whole pitch will rest. After all, if you don’t understand the value of the event, how on earth can you sell it to someone else?

Open up a document and jot down the answers to the questions below. This isn’t a definitive list, but it should help you get started. 

This is why you’re going, after all! Note down everything that is relevant to your role or organization that you want to attend. Mark if they’re hands-on training, keynotes, seminars, labs, or something else—this will be important later. If attending will give you on-demand access to some or all of the event afterwards, note that down, too.

This is a mandatory step. Estimate the cost of attendance, which should look something like the following:

• Registration fee: $XXX

• Airfare/travel: $XXX

• Accommodations: $XXX

• Meals (X days at $XXX): $XXX

• Discounts: $XXX

• TOTAL COST: $XXX

For food and drink, generally $100 a day is a reasonable estimate. 

Try to reduce the total cost as much as possible and add this to your “Discounts” section to help your argument. Here are some ideas to do that:

• Check for discounted tickets (group bookings, student discounts, special codes, early-bird discounts, etc.)

• Consider tickets that provide the minimum required coverage. E.g. Don’t buy a full conference pass if you’re not going to make the most of it

• Check for deals on hotels—some events have special discount arrangements for attendees

• If you’re flying, try and pick cheaper times or budget flights (your tolerance will vary)

Ask yourself if the conference overlaps with any major projects or ongoing commitments you have. Get a calendar and align dates. You’ll need to know this for your eventual pitch.

Sounds like a strange thing to mention, but again, this will help with your pitch. Note down the attendee numbers and if it’s an industry leading, global, national, or local event.

How many vendors will be there? What big-name companies will be in attendance? Will there be any special VIPs, like the US Secretary of Defense or the CEO of OpenAI? Write this all down.

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the event, you need to write down a sample agenda of the workshops and sessions you would like to attend. Why? This helps align your personal goals with the business goals. Your manager can look at the agenda and say, “Yeah, I can see how attending a seminar on AI-assisted app development would be beneficial to us.”

It’s also useful for planning your days out so you’re not running around like crazy, trying to bite off more than you can chew!

There are a lot of good reasons to give your manager a written proposal over a verbal one, even if it isn’t mandatory. 

• You have to spend time articulating a powerful argument for attendance

• It’s less awkward to cite industry statistics and business benefits in writing

• It doesn’t force your boss to give you a response on the spot, allowing them time to give a considered response

• It gives your boss notes they can refer back to with all the relevant cost-benefit information

These tips will help you write your proposal letter and attend the tech conference of your dreams.

One page is the maximum, not the suggested length—keep it short and snappy. Ideally, it should be between 200 to 400 words. Any longer will likely weaken your argument, not strengthen it.

If you ask ChatGPT to write the whole proposal for you, it will be flat and unappealing. The reason for this is simple: From your research, you understand the event and your organization’s needs. This is key to writing a “win-win” argument. 

Your AI assistant doesn’t have this background knowledge, which means it will generalize and waffle. Of course, you can use AI for guidance and refinement, but the meat of the argument should come from you.

Yes, you know that your chosen event is the biggest thing since sliced bread. But your boss and your boss’s boss may not know why this is a big deal. At the very start of your letter, explain the event in a single paragraph. 

Let’s use the example of writing a letter to attend AWS re:Invent.

I would like to attend AWS re:Invent on December 2-6, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. AWS re:Invent is the world’s biggest cloud conference, bringing together over 60,000 attendees including thought leaders and cloud experts from around the world. Over five days, participants get the opportunity to explore industry-leading solutions to transform their company, including the chance to attend 2,000+ learning sessions to quickly master new skills.

Upfront, we’ve provided the who, where, when, what, and why, as well as a sense of scale for the event. Big events are attractive—they make your boss think of the best technology, training, and connections. 

Mentioning details like, “Every year, approximately 50,000 technologists attend this event” or “This event will be attended by industry leaders from AWS, Azure, and Cisco” sounds really good. It emphasizes networking opportunities and a slight sense of FOMO (“If all those other big names are there, maybe we should be there . . .”).

This is where you’ve got to exercise restraint. There will be far more than three benefits of attending, but you need to keep it punchy. Write them all down, pick the three best ones, and cut the rest. Some examples might be:

• Embracing cutting edge innovations, technology solutions, and services

• Building your knowledge and experience in skills tailored to the needs of your organization

• Finding new vendors, suppliers, and business partnerships (E.g. Exploring product demos and having one-on-one meetings with vendors)

• Learning about the latest threats or challenges in your industry (and how to solve them)

• Identifying market trends and shifts in customer demand

• Learning from success stories to save time and money on what works (and doesn’t)

If you can’t think of three benefits, return to the golden rule. Now, let’s go back to our AWS re:Invent example, where we might write something like:

Attending will be beneficial both for my personal growth and our company’s cloud knowledge, as it will allow us to:

• Learn about and gain hands-on experience in the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in the world of cloud computing, for consideration in our business.

• Connect with AWS engineers, architects, and experts who will be on site to answer any questions about the technology we use daily, allowing us to explore greater efficiencies.

• Learn about the latest market trends that our competitors are exploring and our customer base is interested in, allowing us to adapt swiftly to customer needs in 2024 and beyond.

I have attached a list of the sessions I would like to attend and their key takeaways.

Remember, spell out the benefits clearly. Don’t just say, “There will be 600 of the world’s leading vendors at the event.” Make sure to add, “I look forward to stopping by these booths to identify the latest technology solutions and industry trends that might benefit our company.” Your boss doesn’t have to guess at the benefit, and it’s easy to pitch to their boss. 

We covered this in an earlier section, but you want to provide this in the middle of your letter. Right now, your boss is thinking about the benefits and wondering when the other shoe is going to drop, so it’s a good time to be upfront with the costs. Again, emphasize any savings you’ve managed to make.

If you follow a big number with even bigger numbers, the first number feels small. It also puts things in perspective. Using our AWS re:Invent example:

Currently, our organization spends $2.1 million on its AWS cloud infrastructure. However, industry research shows that most companies are wasting on average 32% of their cloud budget. By attending this conference, I will be able to learn from AWS industry leaders on the best ways to lower our total cost of operations, which could help the company save hundreds of thousands of dollars in cloud spend per year.

Before this sentence, your boss might have been thinking, “Spending $5k for one person to attend a conference sounds like a lot.” But now they’re likely thinking, “Spending $5k to save $672k is a real bargain, and something I can sell to leadership.” 

You’ve diffused the cost, which is the biggest pain point. This doesn’t work with just cloud computing, either. Take cybersecurity, for example. You might write:

In light of the staggering statistics revealed in the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023, the global average cost of a data breach surged to $4.45 million in 2023, marking a 15% increase from 2020. To combat this, proactive measures are imperative. The cost of a Full Conference Pass pales in comparison to the potential consequences of a cybersecurity incident.

Work in DevOps? Mention the cost savings of learning improved IT infrastructure management. Work with data? Talk about the potential value your organization can gleam from turning that data into business impact. 

One of the biggest concerns in your manager’s mind will be that they provide you with a lot of money upfront for a momentary benefit. You need to explain how the benefits of attending last beyond the few days of the conference. Here are some ways to do that.

At a minimum, you should promise to come back and knowledge-share everything you learned with the rest of your team. This means that $5k attendance cost for you suddenly turns into a $5k training event for your company, which is a lot more appealing.

You can write a document summarizing your learnings, plus provide a series of recommendations to increase your team’s productivity, maximize your technology investment, or share whatever other insights are relevant.

Some conferences, like the RSA Conference, give you on-demand access to sessions, keynotes, and sandbox and launchpad contests you can use long after the event has finished. 

This means you can tell your manager, “By attending this event, the team and I will gain access to all the sessions, keynotes, briefings, and training content, which we can study over the course of the year.”

All right, let’s go back to our AWS re:Invent example! All of this might look something like this:

When AWS re:Invent concludes, I will compile a short presentation covering key insights, useful vendor product information, and networking discussions. I will also provide a written proposal for implementing new ideas to maximize our cloud investment and optimize our cloud spend.

You’re sending this letter to your manager because you want them to do something, so you need to explain the next steps. To reinforce this request is time-sensitive, mention the time you need to register by, and if relevant, that it’s tied to an early-bird bonus.

It can be something simple, such as:

To purchase my pass at the price listed above, I need to register by [date]. 

All right! Now we’ve gone through the steps, let’s see what it looks like when we bring it all together.

Dear [Decision Maker Name],

I would like to attend AWS re:Invent on December 2-6, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. AWS re:Invent is the world’s biggest cloud conference, bringing together over 60,000 attendees, including thought leaders and cloud experts from around the world. Over five days, participants get the opportunity to explore industry-leading solutions to transform their company, including the chance to attend 2,000+ learning sessions to quickly master new skills.

Attending will be beneficial both for my personal growth and our company’s cloud knowledge, as it will allow us to:

• Learn about and gain hands-on experience in the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in the world of cloud computing, for consideration in our business.

• Connect with AWS engineers, architects, and experts who will be on site to answer any questions about the technology we use daily, allowing us to explore greater efficiencies.

• Learn about the latest market trends that our competitors are exploring and our customer base is interested in, allowing us to adapt swiftly to customer needs in 2024 and beyond.

I have attached a list of the sessions I would like to attend and their key takeaways.

Costs

The approximate investment for my attendance is as follows:

• Registration fee: $XXX
• Airfare/travel: $XXX
• Accommodations: $XXX
• Meals (X days at $XXX): $XXX
• Discounts: $XXX
• TOTAL COST: $XXX

Currently, our organization spends $2.1 million on its AWS cloud infrastructure. However, industry research shows that most companies are wasting on average 32% of their cloud budget. By attending this conference, I will be able to learn from AWS industry leaders on the best ways to lower our total cost of operations, which could help the company save hundreds of thousands of dollars in cloud spend per year.

When AWS re:Invent concludes, I will compile a short presentation covering key insights, useful vendor product information, and networking discussions. I will also provide a written proposal for implementing new ideas to maximize our cloud investment and optimize our cloud spend.

To purchase my pass at the price listed above, I need to register by [date].

Thank you for your consideration.

[Add standard sign off]

You can craft the best argument in the world, but sometimes money is too tight for steak, and even a modest ask won’t fly. In this case, you’ve got the following options.

Your initial pitch might have had a very nice hotel or the full conference pass. Get leaner and then repitch it. 

Alternatively, try reaching out to account representatives at the company running the event. See if you can get a special rate. Account customer representatives are afforded more discretion when it comes to discounts than the general support staff, so you can use this special bonus as another opportunity to reapproach your boss.

Most events have a digital pass which is cheaper. While you won’t get all the benefits of being there in person, you’ll still get to see a lot of content on-demand.

Attending a conference is an investment in your own career growth and personal development. If you can get the time off, consider paying your own way there. While you’ll be out of pocket initially, you may be able to write this off for tax purposes, depending on your country. This is something you can do in both the United States and Australia.

Even if you can’t claim it back, sometimes the attendance can still be worth the cost. For instance, if you’re attending an industry organization event, the connections you make could be essential for the next step in your career. After all, landing a job can be more about who you know than what you know—a conference allows you to strengthen both.

This is honestly a fairly lackluster outcome, but certain events publish their keynotes online for anyone to watch. This is true for big events like AWS re:Invent, but not for smaller or less product-focused conferences.

Rather than finishing this article on a generic note, I’d like to say this: If you’re considering attending an industry event, you’re taking the time to invest in yourself and your company, and that’s outstanding. Regardless of whether you’re successful, you’re trying to constantly improve and find a way to do things better.

Best of luck with convincing your company to let you attend that event and keep being awesome!