5K Attendees Expected At San Mateo County In-Person Conference

SAN MATEO, CA — The San Mateo County Event Center is hosting the Bay Area’s largest in-person conference since the beginning of the pandemic.

More than 5,000 people are expected to attend the SaaStr Annual, the world’s largest non-vendor B2B software conference, which began Monday and runs through Wednesday. The event is the first major business gathering to be held in-person in San Mateo County since June.

“San Mateo County is open for business and we are excited to host SaaStr Annual 2021,” said John Hutar, President and CEO of the San Mateo County/Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We look forward to safely welcoming thousands of visitors to San Mateo County for this year’s event. As the meetings and events industry gets back to business as usual, the health protocols in place for SaaStr Annual will become the gold standard for the safe operation of large-scale conferences moving forward.”

In all, more than 25,000 hybrid attendees will take part in the conference. Safety protocols include a vaccination requirement, proof of a negative COVID-19 test and masking indoors. All activities, meetings and presentations will be held outdoors at the event center’s grounds.

“SaaStr Annual has been in the Bay Area since its inception in 2015,” said Jason Lemkin, CEO and founder of SaaStr. “It’s a testament to our team and our partners in San Mateo County that we’re able to safely and comfortably host an all outdoors, festival style event for our SaaS community. This is one of the biggest SaaS events in the United States with 5,000 people attending in-person and advanced health and safety guidelines in effect.”

The event center has served as a mass testing site, field hospital and drive-through vaccination clinic. More than 93 percent of eligible San Mateo County residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.