{"id":7520,"date":"2026-07-27T16:26:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/?p=7520"},"modified":"2026-08-12T15:38:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T13:38:57","slug":"rsa-conference-2026-het-duurste-netwerkevenement-in-cybersecurity-is-het-de-moeite-waard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/rsa-conference-2026-het-duurste-netwerkevenement-in-cybersecurity-is-het-de-moeite-waard\/","title":{"rendered":"RSA Conference 2026: the most expensive networking event in cybersecurity. Is it worth it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We went to RSA Conference 2026 as part of a trade mission \u2014 partly out of curiosity, and partly because someone had convinced us it was worth the flight. What we found was a week that was bigger, louder and more expensive than we&#8217;d expected, and at the same time surprisingly manageable in ways we hadn&#8217;t seen coming. If you&#8217;re weighing up whether to go next year \u2014 whether as a visitor, an exhibitor, or something in between \u2014 this is what you actually need to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is an honest account of what the conference looks like from the floor: what a stand really costs (roughly), how the messaging at the event felt, and where the genuine value sits. We hope it saves you some time, some money, and perhaps a few awkward conversations about ROI.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3223b9-0a\">What to expect from the conference itself<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RSA Conference is held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and spans two main halls, North and South. Both are large, but don&#8217;t let that put you off: unlike Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where you can easily spend half an hour walking from one end to the other, RSA is surprisingly compact. Getting from one far corner of a hall to the other takes five to ten minutes. Plan your schedule so you&#8217;re not setting aside too much time just for getting around. You can realistically cover the whole show floor in a single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What you <em>will<\/em> underestimate is everything happening outside the official conference venue. Well before the doors opened, the city was plastered with advertising: taxis carrying vendor branding, billboards, and outdoor activations on practically every corner. And then there are the side events. Through platforms like Luma you&#8217;ll find ten to twenty satellite events a day running alongside the main conference, from invite-only dinners to open networking receptions. Depending on your job title and the company you work for, access to some events is selective, but many are more open than they look. The sheer volume of activity outside the Moscone Center genuinely surprised us \u2014 and, frankly, that&#8217;s precisely where a large part of the real networking happens.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_702336-21\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_702336-21\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_702336-21\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_702336-21 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_702336-21\">The real cost of exhibiting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;ve walked the floor and seen the enormous, immaculately finished stands in the central hall, you probably already sensed this doesn&#8217;t come cheap. Based on pricing data from RSA Conference (a caveat: the figures date from 2020 and will since have risen with inflation), a stand of 9 by 9 metres \u2014 so 81 square metres \u2014 starts at around $126,000. And that&#8217;s just the floor space. Add a light-to-medium branding build and you&#8217;re looking at another $40,000 to $80,000 on top. Factor in staff, travel, accommodation and giveaways, and you quickly see how a large exhibitor&#8217;s total outlay climbs comfortably past $300,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For smaller companies or start-ups there are separate sections with more modest stand options. A 3 by 3 metre space in the start-up area comes in closer to $14,000 \u2014 still not nothing, but an entirely different conversation. The trade-off is visible: branding in those sections was noticeably simpler, and some stands were little more than a backdrop and a table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What&#8217;s worth knowing, though, is that you shouldn&#8217;t head to the central area for innovation. For buyers looking for innovative, emerging solutions, those start-up sections are arguably where the most interesting conversations take place. Several founders we spoke to confirmed that the visitor profile there tends to be more focused and more curious than the crowd wandering through big-brand territory.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_3f6431-f8\">Where to spend your time on the floor \u2014 and where not to<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The central areas of the show are dominated by the big players: Wiz, CrowdStrike, Cisco, Splunk and their peers. Their stands are packed with screens, presenters on microphones, staff running coin-operated giveaway systems, and an overwhelming amount of simultaneous activity. Standing next to the Wiz stand, &#8220;overwhelming&#8221; was literally the word that came to mind: everyone wants something from you, and it&#8217;s hard to have a meaningful conversation in that environment. That said, for pure brand awareness among a cybersecurity audience, the presence of these stands is undeniably impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s also worth noting that a presence at RSA isn&#8217;t confined to the show floor. Microsoft reportedly took over several floors of a nearby hotel and used the conference week to bring its existing relationships into that space, keeping a relatively modest stand on the floor that functioned more as signage than as a selling environment. That approach says a lot about how the more seasoned players view the event: the conference is the occasion when everyone who matters in cybersecurity is in San Francisco at the same time \u2014 not the venue itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_33a367-45\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_33a367-45\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_33a367-45\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_33a367-45 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_33a367-45\">How well attended are the sessions?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RSA Conference also runs an extensive programme of talks and sessions, and on paper a speaking slot sounds like an appealing way to generate visibility. In practice the picture is more nuanced. RSA&#8217;s no-show rate is famously high, which is understandable when you consider that visitors are being pulled in dozens of directions at once by side events, meetings and impromptu corridor conversations. People sign up for sessions and simply don&#8217;t turn up because something better came along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That doesn&#8217;t mean talks are pointless, but it does mean you need to think hard about whether they justify the investment. If you bring your own audience \u2014 actively inviting relevant contacts to attend your session \u2014 the format can work well. If you&#8217;re relying on an organic walk-up audience to fill a room, the results will likely disappoint. An expo pass also won&#8217;t get you into the main session tracks, which means a significant portion of the conference content sits behind a higher ticket tier.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_7e3c5a-d8\">Side events: where the real networking happens<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If there&#8217;s one thing we&#8217;d want every first-timer to take away, it&#8217;s this: plan your side events as carefully as your time on the floor \u2014 if not more so. The satellite ecosystem around RSA is vast, and the quality varies enormously. We went to a major vendor&#8217;s afterparty that was so overcrowded it was downright unpleasant. We left, walked around the block, and stumbled onto an unannounced VIP event we hadn&#8217;t registered for \u2014 and ended up having some of the best conversations of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lesson isn&#8217;t simply &#8220;go to smaller events.&#8221; It&#8217;s that the whole week in San Francisco <em>is<\/em> the event, with RSA Conference as the anchor that brings everyone to the same city at the same time. One investor we met put it well: he wasn&#8217;t there primarily for RSA itself, but because all the European contacts he wanted to see happened to be in San Francisco that week. That angle changes how you should approach your planning entirely. Set aside time for the floor, by all means, but fill the rest of your diary with targeted one-to-one meetings and smaller gatherings where conversations can actually lead somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_06f3b2-da\">Stand messaging: everyone&#8217;s shouting, nobody&#8217;s saying anything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is perhaps the most striking observation of the entire week. Walk the floor at RSA 2026 and you&#8217;ll see essentially the same message repeated stand after stand: AI-powered, agentic, automated. The three dominant product categories on the floor were AI security tools, application security (AppSec), and identity and access management \u2014 and within each of those categories the messaging was largely indistinguishable. Phrases like &#8220;discover and protect sensitive data&#8221; or &#8220;cloud and on-premise&#8221; were everywhere, slapped onto stands that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and tell you almost nothing about what the company actually does differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The irony is that while every brand wants to stand out visually \u2014 elaborate theming, dramatic set design, expensive giveaways \u2014 the actual product messaging has fused into a kind of monoculture. The stands that genuinely stuck with us were the ones that committed to a clear, specific identity of their own. Aikido Security, a Belgian company, went with a full Matrix theme: a Neo lookalike in a leather jacket, Matrix-branded polarised sunglasses as a giveaway, and a slogan that \u2014 vague on product detail though it was \u2014 at least stayed consistently and boldly itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there was a castle with a dragon (absolutely no idea what they do) and a record shop (still no idea what they do, but it looked fantastic). I was still talking about these stands at the end of the day, yet I can&#8217;t tell you the companies&#8217; names, let alone what they do. Whether they stuck with anyone else the same way, I couldn&#8217;t say.<\/p>\n\n\n<style>.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15\"]{font-size:var(--global-kb-font-size-lg, 2rem);font-style:normal;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15 mark.kt-highlight, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15\"] mark.kt-highlight{font-style:normal;color:#f76a0c;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;}.wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15 img.kb-inline-image, .wp-block-kadence-advancedheading.kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15[data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15\"] img.kb-inline-image{width:150px;vertical-align:baseline;}<\/style>\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\" data-kb-block=\"kb-adv-heading7520_c3c0b8-15\">Should you go? Our verdict<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trade mission that brought us to RSA Conference was, without question, worth it. Travelling alongside dozens of companies and government representatives \u2014 including visits to places like Stanford University that you&#8217;d never get into on your own \u2014 created a sense of connection that a standard conference trip can&#8217;t match. And it wasn&#8217;t only the Dutch delegation: European companies from several other countries took part in their own trade missions, which made for a rich mix of perspectives both on the floor and at side events. For European cybersecurity companies looking to explore the US market, to understand how others are succeeding there, or simply to build relationships with defence and government players, a trade mission is a clear yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RSA Conference itself is more nuanced. As a standalone destination it&#8217;s hard to justify unless you&#8217;re a large brand with the budget to do it properly, or a start-up in the right section chasing early customer conversations. For mid-sized European companies, the smarter approach is probably to use the fact that everyone is in San Francisco that week as a reason to fill your diary with targeted meetings, and to treat the show floor as context rather than the main event. The conference is the occasion. Make sure you plan around it as well. side-events. Voor Europese cybersecuritybedrijven die de Amerikaanse markt willen verkennen, willen begrijpen hoe anderen daar succesvol zijn, of simpelweg relaties willen opbouwen met defensie- en overheidspartijen, is een handelsmissie een duidelijk ja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We went to RSA Conference 2026 as part of a trade mission \u2014 partly out of curiosity, and partly because someone had convinced us it was worth the flight. What we found was a week that was bigger, louder and more expensive than we&#8217;d expected, and at the same time surprisingly manageable in ways we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":45,"label":"Articles"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Bram-en-Michelle-1-1200x675.jpg",1200,675,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Michelle Wols","author_link":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/author\/michelle\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":45,"name":"Articles","slug":"articles","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":45,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":25,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":45,"category_count":25,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Articles","category_nicename":"articles","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondproducts.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}