I'd never hosted an event in LA before. No local network, no venue contacts, no community of our own in the city. Then 400+ people registered for our LA Tech Week panel, More Done, Same Team, and on Oct 15 a packed room of builders, founders, and operators joined us in Santa Monica to talk about how teams are actually putting AI agents to work.
If you're planning a tech event somewhere you're starting from zero, with no local connections, this playbook is for you. I run marketing at Okou, and I used Okou, our AI teammate, for most of the work behind this event. So this is also an honest look at what that looked like.
It's split into two parts: building the event (the foundation), then getting people into the room (the funnel).
Part 1: Build the foundation of your tech event
1. Decide what success means for you
This is the number one thing. Before you book anything, define what a successful event looks like for you, because that answer changes how you design everything else.
Is your main goal a great guest experience? Or is it purely a number, like a certain amount of qualified leads? Those are two very different events.
For us, the goal was never lead generation. Qualified leads were a bonus. Our real priority was brand awareness: give people a great experience, and show them what Okou stands for.
2. Design the format around it
Once you know your goal, every part of the event should serve it. Since ours was experience and brand, I designed three parts, each with one job:
- The panel: real insights and knowledge. This is our brand value in action: making people feel empowered and informed.
- Food and happy hour: time for people to connect and network naturally over drinks and food, so the night feels fun, not like work.
- An optional Okou table: at the back of the room, so anyone curious could learn more about Okou or just say hi, without feeling pressured or sold to.
Guests mingling before the panel, with the stage set up at the back
Have a rough headcount in mind, but don't lock it in yet. Too many people actually hurts the experience: conversations get harder, lines get longer, and the room starts to feel overwhelming. The real number depends on what your budget can buy, which is the next step.
3. Map your costs, and decide what comes first
With the format set, figure out your cost structure: venue, speakers, food, and materials. Not all of them matter equally.
| Item | Can it flex? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Venue | No | It sets your capacity, your neighborhood, and the kind of crowd you attract. Good venues also go fast, especially during busy weeks like Tech Week. |
| Speakers | No | If the panel is the main event, the speakers are the event. |
| Food | Yes | You can adjust catering to what's available. This is your budget buffer. |
| Materials and swag | Last | Planned with whatever budget is left after everything else. |
Start with the items that can't flex, and research their cost range first. For us, that was the venue. Then do the math: if I want this many people in the room, what will the venue cost, and how much is left for everything else?
I started with a target of about 50 to 60 people, then researched whether that was realistic on our budget. It's a back-and-forth. The venue quotes changed what was possible, and what was possible changed the plan. Expect to adjust both a few times before it settles.
Order matters too, because some decisions depend on others:
- The venue affects the speakers. Where the event is changes who you can ask and who's willing to come.
- The topic affects the speakers. The conversation you want decides who's the right fit.
So lock the venue and the topic first, then find speakers, then fill in food around them.
Materials come last. Only once I knew what the venue and food would cost could I see what was left for materials and swag, and plan them from there.
4. Build the timeline, then let Okou keep you on it
With the order of decisions set, you need a timeline. Here's my confession: I hate planning. So I gave it to Okou. I told it what I knew: the date, the budget, the audience, and the kind of event I wanted. Back on Aug 6, it looked up the Tech Week dates, found the one deadline everything hinged on (host submissions closed Aug 21), worked backward, and turned it all into a day-by-day plan with a checkbox for every task. Here's the plan boiled down to the deadlines that mattered. The two hard ones were the venue and the speakers, both by Sep 8, because everything else could flex around them:
| Deadline | What had to be done by then |
|---|---|
| Aug 6 | Plan built: the Tech Week dates, the one hard external deadline (host submissions close Aug 21), and a day-by-day timeline working back from Oct 15 |
| Aug 21 | Submit the host application to the official LA Tech Week calendar |
| Aug 30 | Shortlist the venues: outreach done, every quote turned into an all-in number |
| Sep 8 | Confirm the venue and lock the speaker lineup, in person where possible, then post the first announcement |
| Sep 13 | Decide design, swag, the catering shortlist, and the channel shortlist |
| Sep 20 | Place the swag order and pick the caterer |
| Sep 21 to 24 | Freeze the materials and submit the official Tech Week and Luma listings |
| Sep 24 | Launch post; the content calendar takes over from here |
| Oct 2 to 10 | One speaker spotlight per speaker |
| Oct 8 | One-week reminder blast |
| Oct 10 | Pay the caterer; print and stage the display materials |
| Oct 12 | Speaker prep call |
| Oct 14 | Speaker meetup and the 24-hour reminder |
| Oct 15 | Event day: 2-hour reminder, doors at 5 |
We made both hard deadlines. The venue was held on Aug 31 and signed on Sep 9, the panel was confirmed in the first week of September, and the first announcement post went up on Sep 8.
The operating plan Okou kept: one block per day, a checkbox for every task (Sep 9 to 14 shown)
Built with Okou. Plan your own event with Okou.
The part that actually saved me was the daily reminder. Every morning, Okou sent me a reminder with the top three things to do that day, where RSVPs stood against the pace I needed, what was due in the next seven days, and where the budget was. I never had to hold the whole plan in my head. I just opened the check-in and did the next thing.
One rule I'd keep: Okou could research, draft, and remind, but anything that spent money or went out to people outside the team still went through me.
5. Execute: venue, speakers, food
Once the plan was set, every item followed the same loop: research, reach out, compare, shortlist, then decide in person. Okou did the legwork. I made the calls. The venue and the speakers were the two things that couldn't flex, so those two got a real trip: once the shortlists were ready, I scheduled meetings and flew to LA to walk the three shortlisted venues and meet every speaker who could make it, and we locked both in on the spot.
Venue
The venue came first because it was the most time-sensitive. In late August, we reached out to almost 20 venues around Santa Monica, Venice, and Culver City. Okou read each quote as it came in, added up the real all-in cost (venue, food, tax, and every required fee), and checked it against our roughly $6,000 total budget (about $5,000 of it for the venue and food) before I even looked. For the ones that fit, it drafted a walkthrough request. Some were cheap but had no mics or projector. Some were great but fully booked, or only open on the wrong date.
The venue tracker: 18 venues contacted in two weeks, every reply turned into an all-in number against the $5,000 venue and food budget (non-selected venues anonymized)
Built with Okou. Plan your own event with Okou.
BLANKSPACES in Santa Monica only had two dates left, so we held ours with a fully refundable booking, then I visited all three finalists in person that same week. BLANKSPACES won: AV included, the right size for our room, and the right neighborhood for the crowd we wanted.
Speakers
I didn't start from names. I started from the topic: AI agents, or AI teammates, but not technical. We wanted it down-to-earth for non-technical people and teams, because they benefit the most from this conversation. I wrote down the questions I wanted the panel to answer, then had Okou evaluate candidates against those questions.
Okou drafted the speaker emails (including recording consent and a social kit for sharing), set up the prep-call invites, and kept a tracker for each speaker: bio, headshot, recording consent, prep call, status. Within the first week of September, we had our panel: four practitioners plus Ming, our co-founder, with me moderating. On that LA trip I also met every speaker who could make it in person. I matched each speaker to a topic, not to a title.
I also reached out to far more speakers than I needed. My worry was that a confirmed speaker might not be able to make it, so besides the final lineup I asked a few other candidates whether they'd be willing to stand by and step in if someone dropped out. That gave me a few backups, and we never had to use them.
The speaker tracker: from first call to run of show
After that it was prep: a speaker guide with the questions, a prep call three days before, a run of show we kept tweaking until the day before, and a casual speaker meetup the night before so everyone met before going on stage.
From the speaker guide Okou drafted: event day and run of show
Food
Catering was the messiest part. Okou tracked about 20 caterers in one sheet and turned every reply into one all-in number (food, delivery, tax, disposables, service fees), so I could compare apples to apples. It filtered out formats that didn't fit, like boxed-lunch-only or full on-site staff, and kept a live shortlist. Some vendors' minimums alone were over our budget.
The catering brief Okou worked from: format, budget cap, and the rules for reading quotes
The catering tracker Okou kept: 21 caterers, one all-in number each for 50 and 60 guests (vendor names anonymized)
Built with Okou. Plan your own event with Okou.
The harder question was how much to order. RSVPs were still moving, so I didn't pick one number early. I priced a few headcount scenarios, kept a shortlist of caterers that could handle each one, and set the latest date I could place the order. Then a few days before the event, I looked at the real RSVP count and placed the final order from there.
We went with a local caterer for a simple drop-off before doors opened, for just over $900. It came in under budget, which left room for the fun stuff in the next step.
6. Add the small touches
The basics make an event work. These two things made ours feel personal.
Meet people before they walk in. When someone registered, Okou sent them a short LinkedIn connection note asking two things: what they wanted to get out of the night, and what they'd want to ask the panel. I collected the answers and gave them to the speakers, so the questions on stage came from the actual room, things like "Where do I start?" and "How do you measure the business value of an AI agent?" It also meant I'd already met a lot of people before the event, and I think that's a big part of why they showed up. It was totally worth it: after the panel, one guest came up just to thank me for bringing his exact question to the stage.
Registrant questions folded into the speaker guide under each topic (excerpt)
Built with Okou. Plan your own event with Okou.
A quick note on how that worked: Okou only sent notes I'd approved, capped each batch, and skipped anyone we'd already contacted. Personal outreach at scale is easy to get wrong, so I kept a hand on it.
A question from the room during the Q&A
Give a gift people will actually use. Once Okou laid out the big costs, venue and food, I could see there was budget left for materials. I wanted something that would impress people and actually be useful, so we made 80 custom notebooks. Okou also generated the UTM QR code we printed inside, so the notebook points back to our site and we can see who comes from it.
The notebook every attendee got: front, and the back cover with the UTM QR code
If I had more budget, I'd print one line on the first few pages: "I want to hand over ___ to my AI teammate today." It says what we do, and it gives people a little push to actually try it.
Part 2: Get people into the room with an event funnel
Everything above is the foundation. A great tech event still needs people in the room, and that's a funnel. Each stage has one number to watch and one lever to pull.
The event funnel: 4 stages on one foundation
If one stage breaks, the ones after it can't make up for it. A listing that doesn't convert wastes all your reach. A full room you never follow up with wastes the whole night.
7. Reach: plan your content, and borrow other people's audiences
I set up a content calendar with Okou: what to post each day, on which channel, and who needed to be involved. After that, my daily job was small: make that day's piece, then schedule or post it. The daily reminder kept me on it.
The content calendar: one post a day, which account, and its status
Ours started with a launch post on Sep 24, then gave each speaker their own spotlight day (Rain, Ritu, Jeff, Sharon, then Ming, Oct 2 to 10), followed by daily posts in the final week and a thank-you after the event. Giving every speaker their own day also gave each of them a natural moment to share it with their network.
But we had no community of our own in LA, so our biggest reach came from other people's. Community partners co-promoted the event, including the CMU III alumni network, Santa Monica New Tech, Smart Tech, PM Social Club, and the Venice Chamber of Commerce. And our speakers shared it with their own audiences. To make that easy, each speaker got a ready-made graphic and post, so sharing took them almost zero effort.
Community partners on the event page
If reach falls behind, open more channels: more community partners, more co-promotion, more speaker shares. Some channels aren't worth it, though. One community quoted $1,000 for a single email blast, and we passed. Free, warm channels like partners and speakers were where we put our energy.
8. RSVPs: build a listing that converts, and track it every day
Your event listing is the page that turns interest into RSVPs. Before writing ours, I had Okou study events like ours, including my own past events: how they wrote titles, how they described the night, how their covers looked. Then it drafted our listing and designed the cover, and we iterated until it looked good even as a tiny phone thumbnail. We built the cover in HTML so the date, logos, and names stayed exact, which image generators usually get wrong.
We also changed the title along the way. "Can AI Teammates Unlock Your Next Stage of Growth?" became "More Done, Same Team: AI Agents Panel + Happy Hour": shorter, clearer about the format, easier to share. The listing ran on Partiful as the main page, plus Luma, Eventbrite, the official LA Tech Week calendar, and a few community calendars.
The Partiful listing above the fold: new title, cover, date, and the basics
Then work backward from the room. We wanted 50 to 60 people there. A fellow host's rule of thumb is to get 3x the RSVPs you need for a free event, so we aimed for about 180, three times the top of that range. Okou broke that into a daily pace, about 6 a day on Partiful and 10 on Luma, and tracked the real number against it in my morning check-in. "Are we doing okay?" became a number I could act on.
Operating plan daily check-ins: Partiful list counts, Sep 9 to Oct 14, 2026
Sign-ups were slow through most of September, then picked up in October as the speaker spotlights and partner posts went out. By the end of event day, we had 287 approved guests across all three platforms, plus 100+ on the waitlist.
If sign-ups fall behind, improve the listing. Keep learning from other events, and ask people directly what they think. When I asked another event host for feedback, she told me our new title was unclear without context. That kind of honest outside eye is hard to get any other way.
9. Attendance: remind people (the boring thing that works)
You probably know this one already, but it really works. Most no-shows aren't a change of heart. People just forget. So remind them on a schedule:
- A week before
- A few days before
- 24 hours before
- 2 hours before doors open
It's low effort, and it reliably gets more of your RSVPs to actually show up. On the night, about 60 people came: a full house, right at the top of our target. Two of them weren't even on the list: they saw our banner outside the venue gate and asked if they could join, so we let them in. A sign out front is one more way people find you.
A full room during the Q&A
Where we landed
- About 60 people in the room, a full house (our target was 50 to 60)
- 400+ registrations, with 287 approved across Partiful, Luma, and Eventbrite and 100+ on the waitlist
- Close to 25,000 estimated impressions across our posts and partners'
- 72 new followers on the Okou company page in the month around the event
But the moment I'll remember isn't a number. One guest told me ours was the panel that resonated with him most out of all the Tech Week events he went to.
The panel after the show
What's next
The event is over, but the work isn't. Post-event follow-up is still going, and this blog is part of it. I'll write a separate post on that: who we reached out to afterward, what converted, and what I'd do differently.
If you want to run your next event this way, get started with Okou and bring your event brief. The plan, the trackers, and the daily reminders in this post were all made in Okou.
Related reading: What should AI remember? A dinner at SF Tech Week, and the week of October 12 product update with photos from the panel.
