At LA Tech Week 2026, we gave people an evening to connect, with no presentation waiting to interrupt.
More than 600 people registered for BRAND POPUP’s AFTERHOUR. We had no panels, no pitches, and no exhibits.
That was the plan.
On October 13, we joined LA Tech Week with a simple invitation: come hang out. Meet someone new. Catch up with someone you already know. Talk about what you’re building, or give yourself permission to talk about something else. AFTERHOUR event listing
After producing events packed with speakers, product discovery, and founder pitches, we wanted to make room for the social part.
Sometimes, the conversation deserves the whole evening.
A Citywide Festival With Room for Everyone
Tech Week is a decentralized tech conference presented by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, known as a16z. Individual startups, companies, and investors organize events across each host city, from hackathons and panels to dinners and community gatherings.
Its 2026 lineup includes Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with LA Tech Week running October 12–18. Official Tech Week website
We love that format. Different communities can contribute something of their own while becoming part of a bigger celebration.
BRAND POPUP’s contribution was AFTERHOUR: a chance for our consumer-brand community to connect with people building across LA’s tech scene.
Sometimes, Hanging Out Is the Work
When you’re producing an event, it’s easy to spend the evening checking schedules, coordinating speakers, and solving whatever just went wrong.
This time, we wanted space to enjoy the people who make BRAND POPUP possible.
Sponsors and partners deserve conversations that go beyond the next deliverable. Emerging brands, service providers, marketers, and consumers need opportunities to get to know each other without rushing toward the next session.
An unhurried conversation can give you an idea, a useful piece of feedback, or a reason to reconnect. It also gives you a moment to breathe and reflect on what you’ve been building.
And yes, having a good time is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
Thank you to our sponsors for supporting us!
The Guest Count Was Only Part of the Story
Our registration count passed 600. After more than 200 people had rolled in and out, we stopped keeping a reliable tally of attendance.
We won’t pretend those are the same number.
But the interest mattered to us. Each registration meant someone had noticed the invitation and wanted to be part of it. In a week full of competing events, that felt encouraging.
An RSVP alone doesn’t prove trust or loyalty. It creates an opening. The experience you deliver, and how you stay connected afterward, is where you earn the relationship.
That’s our takeaway for founders: measure attendance, but also pay attention to who reconnects, who introduces a friend, and who comes back. Those actions help you understand whether your brand is becoming meaningful to people.
Give People a Reason to Return
We want BRAND POPUP to be a name people associate with discovery, generous conversations, and a good experience.
That takes consistency across many evenings, including the ones where we put away the microphones and simply spend time together.
To everyone who joined AFTERHOUR: thank you. To the sponsors and partners who keep supporting us: we appreciated the chance to catch up.
We had a great time. We hope you did, too.
See you at the next one in 2027.