Sponsorship

You buy the room.
Not the people in it.

Everything a sponsor gets here is on this page, and so is everything a sponsor can never get, at any price. The full agreement is at the bottom, in public, before you are asked for anything.

Open now
No lead lists
No slot for sale

Pay here See the tiers Read the agreement

Paying before you have read section 6 is still acceptance of the whole agreement, so it is worth the five minutes. Every sponsorship is invoiced for its own amount, so there is no generic checkout button to press. Ask for an invoice and one comes back with a link on it.

Section 01

What the money actually does

One room is likely what a first year conference can pay for out of ticket revenue. Everything past that is sponsorship, and we would rather tell you exactly which thing your money turns into than sell you a metal color.

It goes to the things described on the tiers below. A larger venue, if interest warrants it, which is the difference between a short schedule and a longer one with room for more workshops. Keynote travel, a bigger line than people expect, and the one most likely to get quietly dropped by a first year conference that runs short. Food and drink, because a room that has to leave at noon to find lunch does not come back the same. And getting people here who otherwise could not afford to come, which is the point at which sponsorship stops being logistics and starts being the actual mission.

And cheaper tickets for everybody. Every dollar that covers a cost is a dollar that does not have to come out of a ticket, so sponsorship goes toward bringing the price down as far as it will go. The goal is for the event to break even, or land slightly over or slightly under. It is not to turn a profit.

What you will not get from us is a running order, because publishing one would mean committing to a sequence before the program even exists. Some of it is not optional anyway: people have to eat whether or not anything else happens. Which thing a given dollar lands on depends on what the event actually needs at the time, and the ledger shows where it went while it is going there, which is a more useful promise than a numbered list written this far out.

What you get in return is real but it is deliberately small: a table if you want one, a sign, your name and logo on this site and on the printed schedule, a t-shirt if we end up making them, which may or may not carry logos, and, at a thousand dollars and up, one unique thing picked for you rather than ordered in bulk. That is the whole list. It is smaller than what most conferences offer because most of what they offer is the attendees themselves, and that is not on the menu here.

There are no logos on the stage, so there is nothing up there to buy. That keeps the program honest without anybody having to be noble about it.

So why bother

A fair question when the list above is that short, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a brochure. Four things, none of which is a spreadsheet.

You go on record supporting privacy. Not a statement on your website, an invoice. A conference that refuses to sell its attendees is an awkward thing to fund if you did not mean it, and that is exactly what makes funding it worth something. Your name ends up next to a document that says nobody in the room is for sale.
You are in the room with the people who do the work. Not the job titles: the person who found the bug, built the detection, glitched the board, or keeps a water utility upright under constraints that would make a bank weep. They are the quiet half of this field, they do not go to the conferences built for procurement, and none of them has ever been moved by a badge scan. They do talk to each other constantly. To be exact about what that is and is not: it is being in the room like everybody else, not access anybody else is denied. We are not selling proximity, we are telling you who is standing there.
Students, and hopefully some of the people who sign things. There is a land-grant university in this town and students get in at cost or gratis on purpose. Some of that room will be making decisions in five years and all of them will remember who paid for the chairs. We expect some leadership in the room too, and expect is the honest verb for it in a first year rather than guarantee.
You get to teach something. Not a pitch: a talk, a workshop, one of the morning activities, or a hands-on demo at your table. If your engineers know how to do a thing, there is room here for showing somebody how to do it, and that does more for your reputation than a booth ever has. Anything on the program goes through the CFP like everybody else and gets read name-blind like everybody else, so it stands or falls on whether it is any good. Sponsoring does not get it in, and not sponsoring does not keep it out. Your table is yours, and teaching at it is the best use of it.

And the thing you do not get is worth saying plainly one more time, because it is the whole shape of the deal: there is no lead list. If a scanned badge count is the only line your marketing budget knows how to account for, this is a bad fit, and we would rather you read that here than work it out after the invoice.

One more thing worth knowing before you spend a budget line here. We keep a public ledger and post to it as money moves, rather than saving it all for a write-up afterward. That includes what each sponsor paid and who they were. That is a promise made to attendees on the who page and it is not something we can carve out for anybody. If your finance team would find that uncomfortable, better to know now than in the write-up.

And one that came up from a sponsor, so it is worth answering here rather than making anybody go looking. This site says in several places that an all white, all male lineup is a failure condition. That is about the lineup, which we build, and not about who turns up or who writes a check. Realistically most of this room will be white men, because the trade and this part of the state both skew that way. Nobody is counted at the door and sponsoring does not put you on the wrong side of anything. The longer answer is on the mission page.

Section 02

Seven ways in, named for things around here

Nothing here is gold, silver or bronze, and none of these is a slot with a limit on it. Each one is an example expenditure: a real thing at roughly what it really costs, so you can see the shape of the budget rather than a metal color. It is not a ringfenced account and nothing here is a guarantee that your particular dollars land on that particular line. What is guaranteed is what you get, listed under each one, and that the whole lot is posted to a public ledger as it moves, so you can see where it actually went while it is going there. Any number of sponsors can come in at any level, two can split one, and if a line is already covered the money moves to whatever the event needs next rather than into a margin. These amounts are set. So are the date and the venue, but whether there is a second day is not, so what any given line finally costs may move, but what you pay does not move with it.

●

Horsetooth

The rock everybody in this town navigates by, and the biggest thing on the skyline. Example expenditure: the potential for a larger venue, if interest warrants it, and the extra talks and workshops that would make room for.

You get: a table if you want one, a sign and a logo on this site and on the printed schedule, sized in proportion to what you gave, one ticket, a shoutout from the crew on the day, out loud and by name, in front of everybody, a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos, and one unique thing, selected for you rather than ordered in bulk.

$5,000per sponsor

●

Cameron Pass

The top of the Poudre Canyon, sixty-odd miles of switchbacks past the last town. Example expenditure: keynote travel and lodging, the line most likely to get quietly dropped when a first year conference runs short, and the one that decides whether the person who should be on that stage can actually get here.

You get: a table if you want one, a sign and a logo on this site and on the printed schedule, sized in proportion to what you gave, one ticket, a thank you by name in the closing remarks, a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos, and one unique thing, selected for you rather than ordered in bulk.

$3,000per sponsor

●

Old Town Square

The plaza in the middle of town, the fountain kids run through all summer, and about as classic Fort Collins as it gets. Example expenditure: feeding the room, meaning lunch and the coffee that runs all day, which is most of the difference between a conference people stay at and one they leave at noon to go find food in the square instead.

$2,000per sponsor

●

The IPA

This town has more breweries than is strictly reasonable and built most of its reputation on the hoppy end of the shelf, so there was only ever one thing to call this one. Example expenditure: the venue has a bar, and this is two drinks in the hand of every person who comes through the door, alcoholic or not, with good options for both. Poured by the venue’s own licensed staff, under their license and their carding. We do not serve alcohol and never will.

You get: a sign and a logo on this site and on the printed schedule, sized in proportion to what you gave, one ticket, recognition in print that you helped pay for the drinks, a thank you by name in the closing remarks, a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos, and one unique thing, selected for you rather than ordered in bulk.

$1,000per sponsor

●

The Mishawaka

A musician called Walter Thompson rode a motorcycle up the Poudre in 1916, heard something in the canyon he could not ignore, homesteaded the spot and spent the next few years building a dance hall there by hand. It has been putting bands on a stage by the river ever since, through floods, fires, a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound marijuana raid and a US Marshals forfeiture notice. Thompson was not the outlaw, for the record. That came later. Example expenditure: the band. Five hundred dollars is roughly the floor for an act worth stopping a conversation for, which is why the number is what it is. Like every line on this page it is an illustration of scale, not a fund with your name on it. If every sponsor picked this one we would not have a conference with a band, we would have a concert, so the money goes where the event needs it in the order set out above.

You get: a sign and a logo on this site and on the printed schedule, sized in proportion to what you gave, one ticket, a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos, and, if the band line gets covered at all, a shoutout from the stage by the band themselves, which is a different thing entirely from one of us reading your name off a card.

$500per sponsor

●

The Poudre

The river the whole thing is named after, which runs at whatever volume it runs at: a trickle by the end of summer and a flood in the spring. Any amount, from a hundred dollars to more than the top line on this page. We will not turn down a donation for being too small and we will certainly not turn one down for being too large. Tell us what you have in mind and we will tell you honestly what it would pay for.

You get: a sign and a logo on this site at any amount, sized in proportion to what you gave, one ticket, and a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos. Past that it scales into whichever of the things above your number actually covers.

You sayemail us

●

Community partner

No money at all. A room, loaner gear for the Island of Misfit Toys, people on the day, a discount for attendees, printing, a PA, a van. Listed on the board at the same size as the money, because at this scale it is worth the same or more.

You get: a listing, a t-shirt if we make them, which may or may not carry logos, and our genuine thanks. You are not a party to the sponsorship agreement below and you are not signing anything. What we ask of you instead is five short lines.

In kindno invoice

One thing we are deliberately not describing. At the thousand dollar level and up there is one unique thing, selected for you rather than ordered in bulk. It gets handed over in person, so it is for whoever from your side is actually coming; if nobody can make it, say so and we will sort something out. We would rather hand it over than explain it on a web page, and we would rather say too little here than have you picture the wrong thing. It is the one line on this page we are keeping vague on purpose, and we are telling you that instead of dressing it up.

One ticket each, and ask about more. Every sponsor gets a ticket, because somebody has to be at the table. Past that it depends on the amount. At a thousand dollars and up, just ask and we will do what we can, which is deliberately not a number: how many depends on how the room and the numbers land, and we would rather say that than print a figure we might have to walk back. Below a thousand, the free ticket is the free ticket and anybody else comes in at the price everybody else pays, which is drafted at no more than twenty-five dollars if they are covering it themselves and ninety-nine if you are, lower if the sponsorship allows it, and is not settled yet. Nobody is being kept out. We just do not fold a block of seats into the package.

When a line is already covered

Money past the named things does not become a surplus and it does not become a margin. It goes to whichever of these the event needs most at the time, and where it actually landed shows up in the public ledger as it happens.

Getting people here who cannot pay to get here

Travel and lodging for speakers and attendees for whom a plane ticket and two nights in a hotel is the entire reason they are not in the room. The CFP already asks people to say so if cost is what is stopping them, and right now the honest answer is that we cannot promise anything. Sponsorship is how that stops being true.

Allocated on who is actually blocked by the cost, which in practice means the people mission one says we go looking for: people of color, people early in a career with no travel budget, the between-jobs, and anybody for whom this is a choice between a conference and a car repair.

Tickets at cost, or at nothing

Students and the between-jobs get in cheap or free. That is already the intent, and every dollar here is one that makes it certain rather than hopeful.

Whatever is next and unfunded

The band, the gear on the tables, the printing, the AV. There is always a next thing. You will be able to read exactly which one your money became.

No exclusivity is sold. We will not promise that a competitor of yours cannot also sponsor, cannot attend, or cannot speak if their talk is good. Category exclusivity is a lever on the program, and levers on the program are not for sale here.

Section 03

The whole list, both halves

The right-hand column is the reason this conference exists. It is not a negotiating position and there is no number that moves it.

Included

✓
A table, if you want one
Somewhere to stand, with your own people behind it, talking to whoever walks up. Plenty of sponsors would rather skip the table and just fund the thing. That is fine and costs the same.
✓
A sign, and your logo in print
On this site and on the paper schedule everyone gets at the door, sized in proportion to what you gave. That is the only thing here that scales with the amount, and it is the honest way to do it.
✓
One ticket, and ask about more
Every sponsor gets one, because somebody has to be at the table. At a thousand dollars and up, ask about more and we will do what we can. Below that, extra people come in at the normal price. Send engineers rather than sales and you will get considerably more out of the day or two.
✓
Named for something real
Not a tier label. Where a sponsorship did pay for an identifiable thing, the schedule says so, because that is more interesting and more true than gold and silver. Where it went into the general pot instead, the published accounts show that.
✓
Something picked for you
At a thousand dollars and up, one unique thing, selected for you rather than ordered in bulk. Not described here on purpose.
✓
A t-shirt, if there is one
If we make shirts, every sponsor and community partner gets one, at every level. Whether we make them is not settled yet, so it is an if. Sponsor and partner logos might go on the back, or might not. That is not decided either, and it is not something you are buying: it depends on whether we want to do it and whether printing the back is in the budget. Nobody should sponsor on the strength of it.
✓
Thanks, scaled to what you gave
Everybody who helps gets thanked, including the community partners who paid nothing: named on the board by the door, on this site, and in the ledger. At a thousand dollars and up you are thanked by name in the closing remarks. At the top tier the crew says it out loud on the day, in front of everybody. It costs us nothing and it is worth saying properly.
✓
A line in the published books
What you gave and what it went on, in a ledger that is public while the event is still being built rather than a write-up months later. Most sponsors never find out. You will, and early enough for it to mean something. If a published figure is a problem on your side, ask and the amount goes into an aggregate line instead, with your name still on the sponsor list. Section 27 sets out exactly how far that goes.

Never, at any price

×
The attendee list
Not a copy, not a summary, not a count broken out by employer, not an introduction email sent on your behalf. We hold an email address, a single-use entry code and a ticket type, we delete it after a year, and none of it goes anywhere.
×
Badge scanning or lead retrieval
There is nothing on the badge to read. No scanner to rent, because there is nothing for it to read.
×
A speaking slot
No keynote, no track, no partner session, no lightning talk held back for a sponsor. Submit to the CFP like everybody else and be reviewed name-blind like everybody else.
×
Any say in the program
Not a seat on review, not a veto, not a quiet word about a talk you would rather was not on. Sponsorship and program are separated on purpose and the separation is the product.
×
Category exclusivity
Your competitor can sponsor too, attend, and speak if their submission is good. Nobody buys the right to keep somebody else out.
×
An endorsement
Taking your money is not us saying your product is good. You may say you sponsor CacheCon. You may not say CacheCon recommends you.
×
Time with my day job
I work in the public sector. Sponsoring gets you no meeting, no introduction, and no influence there. It does the opposite: anyone who supports this conference is excluded from purchasing decisions and evaluations I take part in. Stated in full on the who-runs-this page.

Section 04

How to actually do it

There is no portal, no account to create, and no sponsorship platform that wants a login. It is an email and an invoice.

Email us
“hello@cachecon.com”
Tell us which tier, who you want in the room or just a number if you do not have the names yet, the exact legal name of the entity that will be on the invoice, and where to send it. A purchase order number too, if your side needs one, and say if the invoice has to carry a particular billing entity or be uploaded into a vendor portal, because we will work with it. Say if you want a table or would rather just fund the thing, and tell us about any special requests while you are there, because the answer is usually yes and it is easier now than on the day.
We send the form and the invoice
“one page, plus these terms”
A one page sponsorship form naming the tier, the amount and the entity, which incorporates the agreement below. Sign it and send it back. The invoice carries the same notice, naming the terms by address and version, so paying it is acceptance whether or not the form came back. A W-9 and a certificate of insurance come on request, at no charge and without a chase.
Pay, and send a logo
“ACH if you can”
Details in the next section. Send an SVG if you have one, otherwise a PNG on a transparent ground at 1000px or better, plus a version that survives on a dark background. Placement in print depends on payment clearing before the schedule goes to the printer.

Section 05

Paying, and why we ask for ACH

The process is section 04 and it has not changed: you email, a form and an invoice come back, you pay it. This part is only about the money. Which method, what each one costs, when it is due, and exactly who the payee is, because that last one confuses more accounts payable systems than it should.

ACH or bank transfer: Preferred. Card processing takes somewhere around three percent off the top. On a $5,000 sponsorship that is roughly $150, which is most of a day of coffee for the whole room, gone to a processor. An ACH transfer costs a few dollars flat regardless of size. Account details come with the invoice, never in an unsolicited email, and we will never send you a change of banking details. If you get one that appears to be from us, it is not from us. Call the number on the invoice.
Card: Accepted, happily. If a card is what your procurement process will actually put through without a three week detour, use the card. We would much rather have you in the room than save the fee, and nobody is going to make you feel bad about it. The link on your invoice hands you to Stripe and takes the card there.
Check: Also fine. Mailing address on the invoice. Slower, free, and entirely reasonable.
No checkout button: None of the amounts here are fixed: the tiers are examples, two sponsors can split one, and plenty of people will want to give some other number entirely. So the invoice carries the link rather than this page, and it is made out for the amount you are actually giving.
Terms: Net 30 from the invoice date, or before the first day of the event, whichever comes first.
Who you are paying: Belisle Research and Consulting LLC, a Colorado limited liability company. CacheCon is an event that company runs rather than a company of its own, so the invoice, the contract, the W-9 and the bank account are all in the LLC’s name and they all match each other. If your accounts payable system is looking for a payee called CacheCon, it will not find one, and that is correct rather than a mistake. The LLC exists mainly as liability protection for vulnerability research and it is explained in full here, including why a conference is being run inside it and what is being done about the conflict.

Section 06 · The contract

Sponsorship agreement

Posted in public, in full, before anybody is asked for money. The same document every sponsor signs, with no side letters and no version that only the big one sees.

Version 1.2 · published 2026-11-04. Every invoice names the version it was issued under. Superseded versions are kept and handed over on request, so what you accepted stays provable after this page changes. Version 1.2 corrects the legal name of the contracting entity to Belisle Research and Consulting LLC, and nothing else moved. Version 1.1, published 2026-11-01, narrowed the logo license in section 10 to shirts only if shirts are made and logos are separately chosen. Version 1.0 was published 2026-10-13.

In plain words first. You pay us, you get a table and a sign and your logo and a ticket, and you never get the attendees. If either of us thinks the other has broken something, it goes in writing and there are ten business days to fix it before anybody walks, except for conduct, which is immediate: break the conduct rules and the sponsorship ends and the money stays with us. If we cancel the whole event you get your money back except for what we already spent and cannot get back, and we will show you the receipts. Alcohol is poured by the venue’s licensed staff and never by us. If something goes wrong, what you can recover from us is capped at what you paid us. Colorado law, Larimer County courts. The numbered version below is what actually governs. If you are a community partner giving goods or time rather than money, none of it applies to you and your version is five lines long.

Parties, scope and acceptance. This agreement is between Belisle Research and Consulting LLC, a Colorado limited liability company, which runs the conference referred to in this agreement as CacheCon (“CacheCon”, “we”, “us”), and the entity named on the sponsorship form (“Sponsor”, “you”). It applies only where money is being paid. A community partner contributing goods, services, space, discounts or time and paying nothing is not a party to this agreement and is not asked to sign it; what is asked of them is set out separately after the numbered terms. This agreement takes effect on the earliest of: Sponsor signing a sponsorship form that references these terms; Sponsor confirming acceptance in writing, including by email; or Sponsor paying an invoice issued under these terms. Every sponsorship invoice CacheCon issues carries a notice identifying these terms by web address and version number and stating that payment is acceptance of them. Payment of such an invoice constitutes acceptance of this agreement in full, whether or not a form has been signed and whether or not Sponsor has read it. An electronic signature, a typed name on a returned form, and an email confirming acceptance each have the same effect as a signature on paper, and this agreement may be signed in counterparts.
Definitions. A business day is a day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, or a federal public holiday in the United States; other periods are calendar days. Sponsor’s personnel means its employees, officers, contractors, agency staff, agents, and anybody else attending on Sponsor’s behalf or working at its table, whether Sponsor pays them or not. Writing includes email. The venue means wherever the event is held, once chosen.
Which version governs. These terms carry a version number and a publication date, shown directly above. The version that governs is the one identified on Sponsor’s invoice or form, or if none is identified, the version published on the date of acceptance. CacheCon retains superseded versions and will provide any of them on request. Publishing a later version does not alter the agreement of a Sponsor who has already accepted an earlier one.
The event. CacheCon, to be held in Fort Collins, Colorado, in spring 2027, over one or two weekdays. As of the date these terms were published the dates, the venue, the duration and the number of rooms are not final. CacheCon may change the dates, venue, duration, number of rooms, program, schedule and format without that being a breach of this agreement and without entitling Sponsor to any refund, provided the event takes place. CacheCon will give Sponsor written notice of any change to the dates or the venue as soon as it is known.
What Sponsor receives. Exactly the deliverables listed for Sponsor’s tier on this page as it stood on the date of acceptance, and nothing further. Nothing said in conversation, in email, or on a call adds to that list unless it is put in writing and signed by both parties. Deliverables are contingent on payment in full under section 16.
What Sponsor does not receive. Sponsor receives no attendee list, attendee contact details, attendee count broken down by employer, badge scanning, lead retrieval, or any other personal information about any attendee, in any form, at any time, whether or not Sponsor offers further payment for it. Sponsor receives no speaking slot, no keynote, no track, no partner session, no place on the program review panel, no influence over the program or the call for papers, no category exclusivity, and no endorsement of Sponsor or of Sponsor’s products by CacheCon. This section is a material term and is not negotiable. To be exact about what exists rather than overstating it: registration holds an email address, a single-use entry code and a ticket type, and no name at all. That could still physically be handed to somebody. It will not be, at any price, and it is deleted one year after the event.
Giveaways, drawings and data capture. Sponsor may hand out merchandise, literature and samples at its table, freely and to anybody. Sponsor may not operate a prize drawing, raffle, sweepstakes, contest, badge scan, sign-up sheet, tablet form, QR code, kiosk, or any other mechanism whose effect is to collect attendee names, email addresses, phone numbers, employers or badge details, whether or not entry is voluntary, whether or not a prize is involved, and whether or not the data would be shared with CacheCon. Section 6 is not defeated by collecting the same information at the table instead. The one permitted route is the old one: a person decides, in a conversation with a human being, to hand over their details. If Sponsor wants to run a genuine giveaway that captures nothing, such as a draw from tokens handed out at random, it must be agreed with CacheCon in writing beforehand, and Sponsor is solely responsible for compliance with Colorado law on sweepstakes and contests, including the disclosure requirements at article 1, part 8 of title 6 of the Colorado Revised Statutes.
Data protection. CacheCon transfers no personal data to Sponsor, under this agreement or otherwise. Sponsor is therefore not a processor, controller, joint controller, service provider or recipient in respect of any CacheCon attendee data, and no data processing agreement or addendum is required, offered or will be signed, because there is nothing to process. Personal data that a person chooses to give directly to Sponsor is Sponsor’s own to hold and Sponsor’s own responsibility under applicable law, and CacheCon takes no part in it and accepts no liability for it.
Representations and warranties. Each party represents and warrants to the other that: it is duly organized and validly existing and has full power to enter into and perform this agreement; the individual accepting it has authority to bind it; entering into it does not breach any other agreement binding on it; it will comply with all laws applicable to its activities at or in connection with the event, including those governing alcohol, cannabis, sweepstakes, data protection and accessibility; and neither it nor anyone acting on its behalf will offer, give, request or accept any bribe, kickback, or improper payment or advantage in connection with this agreement or the event, including anything that would breach the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or any equivalent law. Sponsor further represents that anything it distributes, demonstrates or sells at the event is lawful to distribute, demonstrate or sell in Colorado.
Marks, in both directions. Sponsor grants CacheCon a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to reproduce Sponsor’s name and logo for the purpose of identifying Sponsor as a sponsor, on the CacheCon website, in printed event materials, in signage, in the post-event write-up and archive, and, only if shirts are made and CacheCon separately chooses to print logos on them, on those shirts. Nothing here obliges CacheCon to make shirts or to put any logo on them. CacheCon grants Sponsor a non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable license to use the CacheCon name and logo solely to state factually that Sponsor sponsors the event, for the period from acceptance until twelve months after the event. Neither party may alter the other’s marks, use them in a way that suggests an endorsement or a relationship beyond sponsorship, or display them alongside content that would reasonably tarnish them, including depictions of underage drinking, illegal activity, harassment, or a competitor’s branding. Each party warrants it owns or is licensed to use the marks it supplies. Either party may withdraw its license for future use by written notice, but neither is required to recall printed material already produced or to alter an existing archive.
Filming, photography and recording. CacheCon operates a strict consent rule for images and recordings and it binds Sponsor without exception. Sponsor and its personnel may not photograph, film, record or livestream any attendee, any session, or any part of the venue in which attendees are identifiable, without that person’s explicit spoken consent given at the time. A signed release, a colored lanyard, a sign at the door, or a term in a ticket does not substitute for asking. Sponsor may photograph its own staff and its own table. Any material captured in breach of this section must be deleted on request, and a breach of this section is a breach of section 12.
Conduct. Sponsor, its personnel, and anyone present at or working Sponsor’s table are bound by the CacheCon code of conduct and the park regulations, which are incorporated into this agreement. If CacheCon determines, acting in good faith and in its reasonable judgment, that Sponsor or its personnel have breached either, CacheCon may end the sponsorship immediately, remove Sponsor and its personnel from the venue, remove Sponsor’s signage and listings, and retain the entire fee. The notice and cure period in section 18 does not apply to this section. This is stated publicly in the code of conduct and applies to sponsors of every tier.
Venue rules. The venue will impose its own rules on load-in and load-out times, floor loading, power, open flame, fixing signage, noise, security, insurance, and what may be brought onto the premises. Sponsor complies with those rules once CacheCon has passed them on, and with any reasonable instruction from venue staff. Sponsor is responsible for damage it or its personnel cause to the venue. Sponsor arranges its own shipping to and from the venue at its own cost and risk, and removes everything it brought by the end of load-out; anything left behind afterward may be disposed of at Sponsor’s cost.
Alcohol. CacheCon does not sell, serve, furnish or pour alcohol, and will not do so. Any alcohol at the event is supplied and served exclusively by the licensed venue or by licensed staff engaged by that venue, under that venue’s own liquor license and subject to its own age verification. Where a sponsorship funds drinks for attendees, it funds a bar tab or tokens redeemed with that licensed operator and nothing more. Sponsor may not bring, distribute or serve alcohol at the event, at its table or anywhere else, and may not fund or arrange service outside the venue’s licensed operation.
Accessibility and safety instructions. Sponsor keeps its table, cabling and materials clear of walkways and accessible routes, follows any instruction from CacheCon or venue staff given for the safety or accessibility of people at the event, and does so immediately when asked. This is one of the few things CacheCon will ask for without a discussion first.
Payment. The fee is payable net 30 from the invoice date or before the first day of the event, whichever comes first. Payment may be made by ACH or bank transfer, which is preferred, by card, or by check. Sponsor bears its own bank charges. CacheCon bears the processing fee on its own side and does not add a surcharge. Undisputed amounts not paid when due carry interest at one and a half percent per month, or the maximum rate permitted by Colorado law if that is lower, from the due date until paid. If payment has not cleared before a print or production deadline, CacheCon may omit Sponsor from that material without refund, and will tell Sponsor before doing so.
In-kind contributions from a paying Sponsor. Where a Sponsor that is paying money also contributes goods, services, space or people as part of the same arrangement, the sponsorship form states what is being contributed and the date by which it must be delivered or made available. If it is not delivered by that date, CacheCon may reduce the deliverables in section 5 proportionately on written notice. Goods lent rather than given remain Sponsor’s property and section 25 applies to them. CacheCon makes no representation about the tax treatment of an in-kind contribution and Sponsor should take its own advice. This section does not apply to community partners, who are not parties to this agreement.
Notice and cure. Before either party may terminate this agreement for the other’s breach, or claim a refund or damages on account of a breach, it must give the other written notice describing the breach in enough detail to be acted on, and allow ten business days to cure it. A breach cured within that period is treated as not having occurred. This section does not apply to section 12, to section 15, to a failure to pay an undisputed amount that remains unpaid thirty days after written notice, or to anything CacheCon is required to do immediately for the safety of people at the event.
Cancellation by Sponsor. Sponsor may cancel by written notice to hello@cachecon.com. If notice is received more than ninety days before the first day of the event, CacheCon refunds the fee paid less payment processing fees already incurred and less any cost CacheCon has already committed on Sponsor’s behalf and cannot recover. If notice is received ninety days or fewer before the first day of the event, no refund is due, because commitments to the venue, caterers and printers are made by then and cannot be unwound.
Cancellation or postponement by CacheCon. If the event does not take place at all, CacheCon will refund the fee Sponsor has paid, less: (a) payment processing fees actually incurred and not recoverable from the processor; and (b) Sponsor’s proportionate share of costs that CacheCon had already committed and that are non-refundable at the point of cancellation, including venue deposits, catering deposits, printing, and deposits paid to vendors. CacheCon will publish the figures behind any such deduction under section 27, and will provide Sponsor with the supporting detail on request. If the event is postponed rather than cancelled, Sponsor’s sponsorship carries over to the rescheduled event at no additional cost, or Sponsor may instead take a refund on the basis set out in this section. Refunds are issued to the original payment method within thirty days of the decision.
Termination for convenience by CacheCon. CacheCon may end a sponsorship at any time, for any reason or for none, by written notice, and will refund the fee paid in full less payment processing fees already incurred and not recoverable. This exists so that CacheCon is never in a position where the only way to part company with a sponsor is to accuse them of something. It is not available to Sponsor, and it is not available to CacheCon once section 12 has been invoked, because that route keeps the fee and this one does not.
Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure or delay in performing its obligations to the extent caused by something outside its reasonable control, including natural disaster, fire, flood, severe weather, wildfire, epidemic, pandemic, quarantine or public health order, war, terrorism, civil disturbance, labor action, cyber attack, failure of utilities or communications, or an act of a government or public authority. The affected party must give written notice as soon as reasonably practicable, with a good faith estimate of the expected effect and duration, which is an estimate only and not a commitment, and must take reasonable steps to mitigate. If such an event prevents the conference from taking place, section 20 governs what happens to the money. If it prevents performance for more than one hundred and twenty consecutive days, either party may terminate this agreement by written notice and section 20 applies as though the event had been cancelled.
Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by Colorado law, the total aggregate liability of CacheCon, Belisle Research and Consulting LLC, and their members, managers, officers, employees, volunteers and contractors, arising out of or relating to this agreement or the event, on any theory of liability including contract, tort and negligence, is limited in aggregate to the amount Sponsor has actually paid to CacheCon under this agreement. Neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost business opportunity, or damage to goodwill or reputation, even if advised that they were possible. Nothing in this section limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
Indemnification. Sponsor will defend, indemnify and hold harmless CacheCon, Belisle Research and Consulting LLC, and their members, managers, officers, employees, volunteers and contractors from and against any claim, demand, loss, damage, liability, cost or expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of or relating to: Sponsor's marks, materials, demonstrations, giveaways, products or services; the acts or omissions of Sponsor or its personnel at or in connection with the event; Sponsor's breach of this agreement; personal data Sponsor collects at or in connection with the event; or any claim that CacheCon's permitted use of Sponsor's marks infringes a third party right. CacheCon will indemnify Sponsor on the same terms against any claim arising from CacheCon's own willful misconduct or its breach of section 10, subject in all cases to section 23.
Insurance, and Sponsor's property. Insurance is tied to physical presence rather than to how much Sponsor paid. If Sponsor will staff a table, bring equipment, run a demonstration, or have personnel working at the venue, Sponsor maintains commercial general liability insurance at its own expense for the duration of that presence, in at least the amount the venue requires of exhibitors, or, if the venue requires none, at least five hundred thousand dollars per occurrence, naming Belisle Research and Consulting LLC as an additional insured, and provides a certificate on request. A Sponsor with no personnel, equipment or activity at the venue carries no insurance obligation under this section at all. CacheCon may waive or reduce this requirement in writing for any Sponsor whose footprint at the event is small, and expects to do so often, because it would rather have a small sponsor than a certificate. Anything Sponsor brings to the venue, including goods lent under section 17, is there at Sponsor's own risk. CacheCon is not a bailee of Sponsor's property, provides no security for it, and is not responsible for its loss, theft or damage.
Relationship, and no endorsement. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise or employment relationship between the parties. Sponsor may state publicly that it sponsors CacheCon. Sponsor may not state or imply that CacheCon endorses, recommends, certifies, tests or approves Sponsor or anything Sponsor sells, and may not use CacheCon's name or marks other than as permitted by section 10.
Publication of the accounts. CacheCon keeps a public ledger and posts to it as money moves, rather than assembling a write-up once the event is over. It records what came in and what went out, line by line, including the name of each sponsor, the amount of each sponsorship, and the figures behind any deduction made under section 20. Sponsor should expect an entry to appear within a reasonable time of payment clearing rather than months later, and the ledger stays up whether the event happens or is cancelled. By accepting this agreement Sponsor consents to that publication.

One accommodation, on written request. CacheCon will leave the specific amount attributed to Sponsor out of the itemized ledger and fold it into an aggregate line instead. Ask before paying and the entry goes in that way from the start. Ask afterward and the existing entry is amended, which in a running ledger is a visible edit, so earlier is cleaner for everyone. Sponsor is still named as a sponsor, the aggregate figure is still published, and the number of sponsorships folded into it is stated, so the books still reconcile and nothing is concealed in total. The only thing withheld is the mapping between one name and one number. Procurement rules, public-sector disclosure regimes and plain commercial sensitivity all make a published figure awkward for some organizations, and that is reasonable to accommodate. To be exact about the line: the existence of a sponsorship is not negotiable and will always be published; its exact size can be.
Confidentiality. Neither party will disclose the other's non-public business information learned in connection with this agreement, except as required by law. This does not restrict the publication described in section 27, which both parties acknowledge is a term of the deal rather than a disclosure.
First call on next year. If CacheCon runs the event again, Sponsor gets thirty days from written notice to negotiate the equivalent sponsorship before CacheCon offers it to anybody else. That is an opportunity to negotiate and not a right to match, a right of refusal, or a promise about price, tier or availability, and it lapses if Sponsor does not respond within the thirty days.
Assignment. Sponsor may not assign or transfer this agreement, or any benefit under it, without CacheCon's prior written consent. CacheCon may assign it to any entity that succeeds to the operation of the event, and will tell Sponsor if it does.
Third-party beneficiaries. This agreement is between the two parties named in section 1 and nobody else. No parent, subsidiary, affiliate, agency, reseller, distributor, customer or other person has any right under it, and nobody other than a party may enforce any part of it. Where a sponsorship is arranged by an agency on Sponsor's behalf, Sponsor remains the party, remains responsible for payment, and is responsible for its agency's conduct as though it were Sponsor's own personnel.
Notices. Notices under this agreement must be in writing and sent by email: to CacheCon at hello@cachecon.com, and to Sponsor at the address on the sponsorship form. A notice is treated as received on the next business day after it is sent, unless it bounces.
Conflicting terms. This agreement, together with the sponsorship form and the pages it incorporates, is the entire agreement between the parties on this subject and supersedes anything said or written beforehand. Any additional or conflicting term in a Sponsor purchase order, vendor portal, supplier code, click-through or standard terms document is rejected and has no effect, whether or not CacheCon has signed or acknowledged it, unless CacheCon agrees to it specifically and in writing with reference to this section.
Amendment, waiver, severability, survival. Changes must be in writing and agreed by both parties. A failure to enforce a term is not a waiver of it. If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest stands and the provision is narrowed to the minimum extent needed to make it enforceable. Sections 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31 and 35 survive the end of this agreement.
Governing law, venue and costs. This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. The parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in or serving Larimer County, Colorado, and waive any objection to venue there. Each party bears its own attorneys' fees and costs, with one exception: if CacheCon brings a proceeding to collect an undisputed amount that Sponsor has failed to pay, and prevails, Sponsor pays CacheCon's reasonable attorneys' fees and costs of collection.

If you are a community partner

None of the above applies to you. You are not paying us, there is nothing to enforce, and a contract would be an insult dressed as paperwork.

Here is the whole arrangement instead. Five lines, no signature, and you can walk away from it at any point with no hard feelings on either side.

The conduct rules cover you and your people. The code of conduct and the park regulations apply to anybody in the building, including us. That is the one thing that is not negotiable for anyone.
Tell us what you are bringing and roughly when. So we can plan a room around it. If it falls through, tell us that too and nothing bad happens. Things fall through.
Your gear stays yours. It is there at your own risk, we are not insuring it or guarding it, and you take it home at the end. We will help you carry it.
We will use your name and logo to say thank you, on this site, on the board by the door, in the write-up afterward, and maybe on the back of a shirt if we make shirts and decide to print logos on them. Tell us to stop and we stop, except for things already printed.
You get no attendee data either. Same as everybody, same as the people who paid. Nobody scans anybody here and there is no list to be on the wrong side of.

If you would rather have something signed, say so and we will write you a short one. Most people would rather not, and we would rather spend the hour on the conference.

Questions, or a term your legal team needs changed. Send them to hello@cachecon.com and you will get a real answer from a person. Most things are negotiable. Section 6 is not, section 7 is not, and section 14 is not. Section 27 is negotiable in one specific way and no other, and it says so in the section.

Start here

One email is the whole process

Which tier, the legal name of the entity, and a billing contact. Everything else comes back to you from a person.

hello@cachecon.com

You buy the room.Not the people in it.