Mobile app conferences in San Francisco

Industry events allow you to learn, network and check out the competition. They are an extremely valuable part not only of growing your app but also of keeping it relevant. Today, we’ll be sharing seven mobile app conferences that take place in San Francisco for your consideration.

Conferences in San Francisco

1. Mobile Spree

Mobile Spree is a conference hosted by Adjust and aimed at mobile app marketers that takes place in Berlin and San Francisco every year. Adjust dubs itself the “Mobile Measurement Company” and it integrates with over 1500 advertising partners.

The conference includes keynotes, workshops and panels but has no sponsors or booths, meaning you get the content without the sales pitches. This year, the San Francisco event will be held on October 10th at the Terra Gallery. You can check past talks in their resource hub to decide if this event fits your needs or check out this article about the Mobile Spree Berlin 2019 takeaways. Tickets are not available yet, but you can also subscribe to get updates for the event and be among the first in the virtual queue.

2. Mobile Growth Summit (MGS)

MGS is a worldwide event held in the UK, Canada, Singapore, New York and, of course, San Francisco, among other locations. It is a non-vendor conference spanning over two days and aimed at helping you connect with and learn from professionals in the mobile app growth and brand marketing industries. MGS covers topics such as user acquisition, retention, engagement, monetization and analytics related to mobile, retail and mobile commerce (or mCommerce) brands. Furthermore, the event does not only include panels, keynotes and workshops, but also gives you the opportunity to take part in several networking events.

The 2019 San Francisco convention took place last February with over 1500 attendees, included over 1300 companies, and booked over 100 speakers. The content for the event was divided into five tracks: Mobile Growth & Marketing, Calibrate Blockchain, Emerging Markets & Tech, Mobile Gaming, and Actionable Workshops.

The 2020 edition will be held on February 1st. In the meantime, you can watch some of the 2019 talks here or take a look at our detailed article here.

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3. App Growth Summit

This conference series also focuses on mobile app growth professionals to help them increase growth and sustainability. However, unlike most of the others, this one is invite-only.

App Growth Summit is held around the globe in New York, Berlin, Seattle, São Paulo, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore. The event includes discussion sessions, presentations, workshops and panels with experts from across the industry. You can take a look at what the 2018 conference was like to get some more information.

This year’s San Francisco edition will be held on October 24th and, if it sounds like your cup of tea, go ahead and request an invite here.

4. Growboat

This event strives to be the most exclusive in terms of networking in the app industry. It connects founders, CMOs, CEOs and executives from all over the world both in Barcelona and San Francisco. If you’re lucky enough to join, you will sail for three hours on a catamaran while networking and discussing topics such as retention, monetization and growth. As you can see, this is a more relaxed event and, consequently, only two sponsor representatives are allowed on board.

You can apply by signing up to the newsletter and replying to their welcome message with some information about yourself. Sadly, this year’s San Francisco event has just gone by on June 25th with 35 guests, so you’ll have to wait until next year to enjoy it. The sailing experience was sponsored by Lab Cave (a mobile app growth company) and Adjust. Growboat has also recently partnered with App Growth Summit.

Top 7 mobile app conferences in San Francisco

5. Game Developers Conference (GDC)

Are you in the game development industry? Well, GDC is the largest professional game industry event. It spans over five days, includes 28,000 attendees, and covers countless activities. You will find programmers, artists, game designers, decision-makers and producers attending the GDC Conference and the GDC Expo. The conference includes lectures, tutorials, panels, and discussions, as well as a Mobile Summit and a UX Summit, among others. The expo showcases development tools and services from over 550 tech industry leaders, such as Amazon and Oculus. GDC also hosts the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival.

The 2019 edition was held last March and passes ranged from $399 for just the expo to $2,499 for full access to all events, with considerable discounts for early birds. Moreover, the conference included nine different tracks: Design, Programming, Business & Marketing, Production & Team Management, Visual Arts, Audio, Vision, Advocacy and Classic Game Postmodern.

6. Disrupt SF

Disrupt is a conference organized by TechCrunch that revolves around startup culture. It is aimed at founders, investors, developers and hackers, among other figures in the industry. In addition to talks, workshops, and Q&As, it includes a hackathon, book signings and a variety of networking events (on top of a networking app called CrunchMatch). And, if you are on the other side of the map, Disrupt is also held in Berlin.

This year’s San Francisco edition will be held on October 2-4 and passes range from $145 if you’re looking to just browse around at the expo to $1995 if you’re an exhibitor, with several categories in between. The list of speakers includes Heather Adkins, the Senior Director of Information Security from Google, and Cal Henderson, the Co-founder and CFO of Slack. You can find videos from last year’s SF edition here.

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7. Droidcon SF

Droidcon is a massive global network of mobile app conferences for the Android community, with over 25,000 developers checking in in 22 cities, including London, New York, Singapore, Nairobi, San Francisco, Manila and Dubai. The first Droidcon was held in Berlin in 2009 and today sponsors include big shots like Tinder, Slack, Etsy, Netflix, Asana and Yelp, among many others. The San Francisco edition includes talks at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels, as well as networking opportunities.

The 2019 edition will be held on November 18-19th and will include over 70 talks on 5 different tracks. You can purchase your ticket at Eventbrite from $395 for an Early Bird to $1,995 for a Startup Demo Table. You can also check out the highlights of the 2018 edition here.

Mobile app conferences: What’s your pick?

What are you waiting for? You are definitely spoilt for choice, so take your pick and be sure to check out the mobile app conferences websites and information on past editions to give you an idea of what to expect.