9 Things You Don’t Want to Miss at AWS re:Invent 2026

AWS re:Invent 2026 lands in Las Vegas from November 30 to December 4. The campus stretches across The Venetian, Caesars Forum, Caesars Palace, MGM Grand and Wynn | Encore. You’ll find more than 2,200 sessions in the catalog and over 420 sponsors in the Expo, plus a lot of walking between them.

Agentic AI is all over this year’s agenda, and engineering teams are arriving with harder questions about it. We’re all ready to learn. Whether this is your first re:Invent or your tenth, here’s our short list for getting real value out of the week.

1. Download the AWS Events app before you fly

The AWS Events app is where your week gets built. It recommends sessions for your role, includes indoor maps and shuttle times, and has an AI assistant that finds similar sessions when your first pick is full. Reserved seating opened on October 6, so now is a good time to start favoriting.

Quick move: Save more sessions than you can attend. A backup makes pivoting painless.

2. Catch the keynotes, live or from your hotel room

All five keynotes run at The Venetian and stream virtually (all times PT):

• Developer Keynote: Monday, November 30, 7:30 to 8:45 PM
• CEO Keynote with Matt Garman: Tuesday, December 1, 8:30 to 10:30 AM
• Data & AI Keynote: Wednesday, December 2, 8:30 to 10:00 AM
• Partner Keynote: Wednesday, December 2, 3:00 to 4:00 PM
• Technology Innovations Keynote: Thursday, December 3, 8:30 to 10:00 AM

Quick move: Big announcements shape the conversation at every booth for the rest of the week. Catch the CEO keynote on Tuesday morning and you’ll walk into the Expo knowing what everyone is talking about.

3. Know before you go

The best connections at re:Invent happen after hours, but finding the right events takes time. We put together a complete guide to 60+ side events happening across Las Vegas: from executive dinners and happy hours to networking breakfasts and even a group workout. Check out the full list and register before you fly: AWS re:Invent Insider side events guide.

Quick tip: Use the guide to filter events by industry, type, and venue so you can build your after-hours schedule in minutes. 

4. Don’t miss relevant sessions like “AI Didn’t Wait for Security: Now What?” (COM401)

This Level 400, community-led, lecture-style session starts from an uncomfortable truth: developers are already shipping with agentic AI, coding assistants and MCP servers, often without governance. Blocking them slows everyone down, so the session shows how to build a governed AI platform instead. 

It’s close to home for us. When we wrote about the Logz.io MCP Server, the governance advice mattered as much as the setup: least privilege, OAuth 2.0 with PKCE over static tokens, and a careful look at any write actions an agent can take. COM401 zooms out to the platform layer that brokers all of it.

Quick move: It’s walk-up only, so get there early. Check the schedule for more interesting sessions like this.

5. Work the Expo in two lanes

The Expo at The Venetian holds more than 420 sponsors, and trying to see them all is how you end up with a tote bag full of stickers and zero useful conversations. Split your time instead. One lane is for theater talks and demos tied to problems you’re actually working on. The other is for vendor conversations you’ve already decided are worth having.

• Welcome reception: Monday, November 30, 4:00 to 7:00 PM
• Expo hours: Tuesday and Wednesday 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Thursday 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
• Expo happy hour: Wednesday, December 2, 4:30 to 6:00 PM

Quick move: Shortlist 8 to 10 booths and bring two screening questions. Ours would be “How does this work when an agent is the user?” and “What happens to the bill when data volume doubles?”

6. Party with us at re:Invent: social hour with Twingate

Logz.io is teaming up with our partners for a night worth saving. Twingate brings Zero Trust access, so the guest list leans toward engineering, platform and security leaders.

• Social Hour with Twingate, Wednesday, December 2, 6:00 PM: Dinner, a premium open bar and music with complimentary shuttles every 15 minutes from the re:Invent area. Request to join.

Quick tip: The event needs host approval and space is limited, so request your spot now.

7. Plan your meals like you plan your sessions

re:Invent is spread across several properties, and distances in Vegas are longer than they look on a map. The attendees who stay sharp through Thursday are usually the ones who planned where they’d eat.

• Eat near your next session. Grab lunch at the venue you’re heading to instead of wolfing down a sandwich on the shuttle.
• Carry snacks and water. Desert air plus conference-hall AC dries you out fast.
• Use the receptions. Monday’s Expo welcome reception, the partner-hosted cocktail hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Wednesday’s Expo happy hour all come with drinks and snacks.
• Save room for Wednesday. Our Social Hour (see #3) serves three hours of passed bites: Angus beef sliders with Gruyère and truffle aioli, Thai chicken wontons, fennel-dusted tuna tataki (gluten free), cauliflower cake sliders (vegetarian) and black bean quinoa tacos (vegan).

8. Make room for the “Uniquely re:Invent” moments

Some of the best memories happen outside the session rooms. Our picks from the community experiences:

• The re:Invent Run (Wednesday): A run or walk at Allegiant Stadium, with proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
• Dungeons and Dragons Miniature Mixer (Tuesday): Roll a character, paint a miniature and grab a drink. No experience needed.
• A tattoo, if you’re brave: An on-site studio offers real tattoos and piercings, with temporary custom tattoos for the less committed.
• re:Play (Thursday): The official closing party, 6:30 to 10:30 PM at Allegiant Stadium, with live performances, games and themed lounges.

9. Prebook a meeting with the Logz.io team

Meeting calendars fill up weeks before re:Invent starts. Book time with our team now and skip the Expo-floor scramble. Some topics we’d be glad to dig into:

• Connecting AI assistants and agents to your observability data 
• How OrionIQ runs investigations and root cause analysis so engineers start from an answer instead of a blank query
• Full-stack observability with Open 360 AI
• Keeping telemetry costs in check as data grows (our pricing page is a good primer before we meet)

Prebook a meeting with our team

See you in Vegas!

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