2026 Sponsorship Prospectus
Why sponsor us
DEF CON is chaotic. If your company's software runs on any of our infrastructure that attendees can reach, it'll probably get hacked. We recommend letting that happen. It's fun for everyone involved.
Nix Vegas is hosted by the Southern California NixOS User Group. We've been part of the Nix community for years and help organize Planet Nix and SCaLE every year. Running events is something we know how to do.
Some examples of potential fits:
- Do you want to help hackers connect with the Nix ecosystem?
- Do you make hardware that matters for trustworthy software builds at scale?
- Are you passionate about improving how software is deployed as more of it gets created?
Here's what sponsorship gets you:
- A presence in our community space — logo on our sign and slides, plus shoutouts on our website and social media.
- Access to engineers who care about the same software- and hardware-security problems you do.
- At our top tier: a conference badge for someone on your team, and the chance to put your swag directly in our community space.
We're a DEF CON community first, and we use that lens to reach into the more esoteric corners of Nix and NixOS. We encourage creative exploration of the systems that keep our software supply chain and builds secure.
Audience
2025 was our first year as a DEF CON community and we filled the space. Some talks ran standing room only, with attendees lining up outside the space to get in. We ran out of swag.
The programming itself:
- 12 speakers delivering 15 unique talks and demos
- 3 days of content in the Nix Vegas Space, single-track from morning to evening
- Coverage spanning Nix, NixOS, reproducible builds, supply-chain security, and the more esoteric corners of both ecosystems
Full lineup: 2025 schedule and 2025 speakers.
We're building on that for 2026.
Sponsorship tiers
DEF CON has rules for community sponsorships. We follow them, which shapes what we can and can't offer.
What we can do: logo placement on our website, signage and slides inside the Nix Vegas Space, brief mentions in opening remarks, social media shoutouts.
What we can't do: guaranteed speaking slots, sponsored sessions, branded talk content, dedicated booths, or sales of your product on our behalf. CFP is independent of sponsorship. If your team wants to submit a talk they go through the same review as everyone else.
If you want your own space at DEF CON to recruit, talk to existing customers, or showcase what you build, that's the DEF CON Exhibitor program. It's separate from community sponsorships, with its own application process.
Source — $1,000
- Logo on the Nix Vegas 2026 website (sponsor page and footer)
- One social media shout-out across our channels (Bluesky, Mastodon, X)
Builder — $2,000
- Everything in Source
- Brief mention in opening remarks
- Logo on the between-talk slides shown in our community space
Closure — $4,000
- Everything in Builder
- Your banner displayed inside the Nix Vegas Space (subject to DEF CON signage review)
- Distribute your swag in our community space
- One DEF CON badge for a member of your team
- Acknowledgement in the post-event retrospective blog post and talk recordings
What we need beyond cash
Cash is great. Sometimes in-kind support fits better with what your company already has lying around. What we may be looking for:
- Networking. A 10G-capable router/firewall and a managed switch with VLAN support to anchor the network. Smaller boxes that can run as mesh nodes around the space.
- Compute. Servers for the binary cache (we mirror the full nixpkgs tree on-site), plus a high-core-count server (think 96+ cores) for streaming, builds, and live PR review during the event.
- Speaker badge funding. DEF CON badges are expensive. We cover them for the speakers we bring in, and funding helps us bring in more talent and a more diverse lineup.
- Swag. We ran out of swag in 2025. If you produce or fund stickers, t-shirts, patches, or anything else attendees can take home, we'll happily put your name next to it.
- Events. If you want to sponsor the inaugural Nix Party Friday evening, get in touch. We're looking at a few affordable restaurants on the Strip for a get-together.
See our DEF CON 33 retrospective for how 2025 came together. 2026 needs are similar or larger.
Got something that doesn't fit a tier? Email sponsor@nix.vegas and we'll work it out.
Get in touch
Email sponsor@nix.vegas. Tell us which tier you're thinking about, what you can offer in kind, or just that you want to talk. We'll route to the right person and respond within a few days.