I took my first trip as a paying customer to AWS re:Invent in 2024. I’m lucky enough to have been several times before, but those times was as an employee and I spent the week working ( Is that a smile I see? How rude…).
2024 was different. I could actual attend sessions other than the ones I was presenting and I could attend the keynotes too ! I was really looking forward to spending the week learning, meeting new friends and old ones too. I’m very fortunate to belong to the AWS Community Builders programme and I’ll highlight experiences I had which were part of this programme but focus mostly on things that everyone will be able to do.
June 2024.
I work for a startup called Digital Futures www.digitalfutures.com and so sending one of their employees away for a week is a big investment. Fortunately, I have an amazingly supportive boss and I got the go-ahead for the trip. On the AWS re:Invent page https://reinvent.awsevents.com they offer a template that provides you some ammunition about the benefits of attending the event which you could use if your manager needs some persuading. It's easy to think a week in Las Vegas is going to be a huge bar-crawl. The reality is that it’s a very busy and tiring week and you’ll learn a massive amount. There will be opportunities for drinks but I only managed to attend one event in a whole week.
It’s incredibly important that as soon as tickets come out you are ready to start booking things. So my strong advice here is to start the conversation with your manager in January and remind them every-month until they say yes !
Why the rush?
It could very well mean you going or not. Let me explain. Tickets for the week long event are $2,099. When tickets go on sale there is an early-bird discount which will bring that cost down to $1,799 although pricing for 2025 may be different. As part of the AWS Community Builders programme I got an awesome 50% off the normal price. If you are an AWS partner or a large enough customer then there are some real discounts to be had, you just have to be cheeky enough to request them from your AWS account team.
However, the real reason for booking early will be the flights and hotel costs.
Flights
My flight cost £709 from the UK to Las Vegas direct on Virgin Airlines. There is a 10% discount code from Delta (which would have worked for me since Virgin and Delta are buddies) on the re:Invent portal, but I only found out about this later. Still, £709 is a good rate because that cost will end up going well over £1,200 the longer you leave it. Also, the flights fill up quickly so you’ll end up taking an indirect flight which will be a pain.
A lot of attendees’ transit via LAX, which is a lot smaller than you imagine it to be. I have known people in the past drive the 4 hours from LAX to Las Vegas but apparently, it’s a very boring drive with not much to see. Book early and you’ll get a direct flight.
The next question you’ll have. How long should I go for? Sessions start 8am Monday. I arrived late Saturday which gave me Sunday to pick up my badge, hoodie and acclimatise. In all honesty I would try and push this further and arrive late Friday if arriving from outside the US. I would also book my return for Saturday/Sunday for the same reasons.
Visas
I don’t have a huge amount of information to help you with Visa’s. In the UK you’ll need an ESTA visa which can be requested fairly easily via https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov and costs around $21 which arrives pretty quickly. Once your re:Invent ticket is purchased and the hotel & flight booked then start looking at a Visa. You’ll need the address of the hotel when you make a visa application, and I remember having some difficulty with the phone number since the hotel I stayed at published a non-Nevada phone number. But a quick Google sorted that.
Every year I read that people from outside the UK/EU struggle with getting a Visa. AWS have a re:Invent support team (awsreinvent-support@amazon.com) that can provide some level of assistance here but they have to deal with 70,000 attendees and they can’t actually provide you a visa, just advice.
My own advice here, get this sorted quickly. If there’s a problem, you’ll have time to fix it.
Hotels & Food
Slightly out of order since you’ll need to know where you are staying before you get a Visa, but this is going to be a longer discussion than Visa’s.
So, who’s paying for your trip and what’s included in that agreement?
The reason I ask is, that it really does determine where you’ll stay and what you’ll eat, and the two areas are very much linked.
My company paid for my hotel which I booked at the same time as booking my re:Invent ticket. As I mentioned, this is a big investment for us so I really didn’t want to exploit this and it maybe stop my colleagues from going on their own trips in the future.
One the re:Invent ticket page you’ll be given a range of hotels that are partnered with AWS and you’ll get a discount from the normal over the counter price per night.
But there are a million ways of booking hotels these days all of which offer discounts so maybe its best to research this a little before jumping at a hotel. Saying that, the hotels on the Las Vegas strip fill up fast and I know that this year come October a lot were full for re:Invent week.
I stayed at the Paris which was one of the lower cost hotels on the portal but certainly not the lowest priced. I thought it was a good middle-ground since it was on the Las Vegas strip, but about half-way down and so a walk to the Venetian would take 25 minutes. You’ll of course know that the Venetian hotel is the hub of re:Invent and its where the keynotes are held alongwith the expo and some sessions. That’s why its important.
In previous trips to Las Vegas, I’ve stayed in the Venetian, Aria, Vdara & Excalibur. The Venetian is a clear favourite. The rooms are lovely and I loved eating at the Grand Lux restaurant for breakfast. It also has a wonderful first floor with restaurants and a river which you can ride in a gondola with your loved one.
The Aria and Vdara are a decent 20 minute walk from the Venetian. The Vdara is one of the only room-only hotels on the strip. No casino, a small restaurant and a Starbucks so if you want to be away from all the noise then it’s a good choice. Its also a 5 minute walk to the Aria if you want noise, casino’s and restaurants !
All of the hotels on the strip have their own character and come with multiple restaurants but it's here where I think I’d take a different approach if I were to attend another re:Invent . The hotel restaurants are expensive. Which is why I asked at the start of this blog who’s paying for your trip and what’s included. I think an average $50 nightly allowance isn’t going to get you past a burger and a beer in most of these restaurants. In the Paris the steak restaurant start at approx. $80 not including sides or drinks. Prices go up to $250.
At the risk of losing all your respect, a $250 steak is lost on me. I’d probably frame it rather than eat it. Do some research here, I’m sure there’s reasonably priced food available aside from the high-end restaurants. There’s a host of restaurants in the Linq area but nothing really caught my eye enough to want to venture inside.
I mentioned a different approach for next time, here it is… I think I’d look at a hotel outside the Las Vegas Strip for my next stay. You’ll find prices are cheaper, the food is going to be cheaper, and Uber/Lyft is plentiful. Uber rides from the strip to a hotel like the Rio or The Orleans is about $20 so make sure you add that to your daily cost. I think you’ll experience a different side to Las Vegas away from some of the unpleasant aspects of staying on the strip.
I’m really curious about feedback if you’ve stayed outside the strip, let me know in the comments.
Of course, if your company is paying for everything and you have a generous budget for food then I would always stay at The Venetian or maybe Palazzo/Wynn hotels.
Finally, on the subject of food, breakfast & lunch as well as coffee & soft drinks are provided to delegates in the hotels running events so if you want, you’ll be covered for those meals for free.
Your Agenda
Ok, you are all ready to go. You’ve got flights, tickets, hotel and food covered. Its now time to relax! Not a chance…
The session catalogue will start to populate in September and continue to add sessions until about a week away from re:Invent . It was this aspect of the whole journey where I received the best advice from my AWS Community Builder colleagues.
Keep an eye on the re:Invent portal and start favouriting the sessions that you are interested in seeing.
Tip #1– Focus on sessions that are not recorded. Basically, Workshops or any session that requires you participate in some way. The recorded stuff you’ll watch when you are back home.
Keep checking back on the re:Invent portal as new sessions are added and you’ll quickly build a large list of sessions you’d like to attend. The re:Invent portal has a calendar so you’ll see where your favourited sessions clash. You’ll then receive an email from AWS in early October saying that ‘Reserved Seating’ will be opening on a certain date. This is very important for you.
Look at that favourite list and be ruthless with it. Try to minimise travel between hotels as much as possible. In an ideal world you’ll book a single days sessions in a single hotel (for example, Monday in the Manderley Bay, Tuesday in the Venetian etc..).
If you don’t have a reserved seat and the session fills up then you’ll have to queue to get in and there’s a chance you’ll miss it. Queuing wastes time, so get your very favourite sessions booked.
If you have to switch hotels from session to session, give yourself 30-60 minutes. Even sessions in the same hotel you’ll need time to get there. If you book 10 hours of back to back sessions you’ll miss around half of them. Be considerate, if you arnt going to make a session then release your seat.
Session planning
This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I found the official re:Invent session booking and planning to be perfectly fine. I could see in the calendar where I should be and that came through on the AWS Event mobile app. But there are some great alternatives to this that were created by members of the AWS community.
https://reinvent-planner.cloud/ built by Raphael Manke which a lot of people recommend it
https://reinvent-planner.richardfan.xyz/ built by Richard Fan and also a favourite of many.
However, you do it, make sure you reserve seating on the sessions that you simply must-attend. As mentioned, you’ll get an email telling you the date and time that Reserved Seating will open (usually late afternoon UK time). Make sure you get there early. In October 2024 it opened 10 minutes earlier than specified and I managed to book everything I needed.
Sessions start at 8am and go until 6-7pm. AWS re:Invent starts on the Monday and there are still sessions to attend on Friday. Friday sessions are not as popular as delegates head for the airport to travel home. Be kind to yourself, book no more than 5 sessions a day and make sure you take time to catch-up with friends and take an afternoon to cover the expo.
Also, I’ve just got to add here that hotels in Las Vegas are BIG (if you’ve not been before). I’m serious, its going to take you time to walk from one session to another in the same hotel or to the inter-site transport. I’ll skip the advice on wearing comfortable footwear since this is covered by other blogs.
Inter-site transport
AWS provide free transport between hotels. The buses leave regularly, and are a perfect way of getting around. However, re:Invent 2024 occurred a week after the Las Vegas Grand Prix and the roads around the strip had lots of roadworks and this added to the time needed between sessions. These journeys are a good time to say hi to people you’ve not met.
I’ve missed Reserved Seating, should I just cancel now?
No !
If your session is fully booked, that still leaves 10-20% of seats available for walk-ups. If you really do want to attend that session, then get there early and queue. If you are early in the queue, you’ll get a seat. Also, a lot of sessions are replayed on other days of the week, so keep an eye out for those.
Tip #2 - I’ve not read this anywhere and so I’m unsure if this only happened in 2024 or not. Either way, as we approach December there are a significant number of new sessions that appear in the catalogue all of which are detailed as NEW LAUNCH. These are going to be sessions directly talking about new services or features announced in keynotes. It’s obviously a bit of a gamble to book these since you don’t know what the subject is until the service is launched. Quite exciting to be one of the first to learn about new things though!
Outside of re:Invent
I’ll skip a mention of re:Play, other blogs cover that much better than I could, since I didn’t attend. What I was actually surprised at was the amount of invites I got over email in the weeks preceding re:Invent to join vendor/partner parties which happen throughout the full week of re:Invent.
In fact there’s a website dedicated to these parties ( ), the vendor parties are all in restaurants or nightclubs and so attending these parties will certainly be a good source of food, drink and great networking opportunities. Of course, these vendors/partners are after your business so prepare yourself for a sales pitch.
One of the very best things to do in Las Vegas is to visit The Sphere and I noticed that 6 vendors/partners held events here that included tickets to see the amazing ‘Postcard from Earth’ show which I loved. My tickets were bought for me by my kids as a birthday present, but I could have saved them $$$ by attending via a vendor !
There are lots of entertainment shows happening the week of re:Invent ( ‘Marriage can be Murder’ was an absolute favourite and I’d certainly recommend it). Buying tickets online usually provides you with money-off further shows, so please don’t book everything in one go (like I did), and wait for the voucher code instead !
Tips that you’ve read elsewhere, added for completeness
• Use Comfy shoes only. You’ll be walking 20-30,000 steps a day.
• Buy a humidifier for your room. Costs around £20 and makes for pleasant sleeping.
• Bring an extra case for all the swag you’ll have. Actually, I disagree with this. How about not grabbing loads of swag in the first place? I saw a lot of people walking around with mine-craft style plastic swords. Are you really going to take that back home with you? You will be receiving a hoody for sure, so you’ll need space for that. I neglected to queue for a re:Invent jacket after questioning if I really would use it. Quite like stickers, socks and tshirts other than that I’m good.
I hope some of this has been useful to you. If you are going to re:Invent 2025 then I wish you a safe journey and a wonderful time !
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