Complete Guide to Dreamforce 2023
As Salesforce’s flagship conference, Dreamforce is the highlight of the year for many professionals in the ecosystem. With countless workshops, networking opportunities, and parties – not to mention a famous musical headliner – Dreamforce is a much-loved event that attracts tens of thousands of Trailblazers to San Francisco every year.
In the wake of the global pandemic, Dreamforce has adapted to cater for a virtual audience, launching Salesforce+ (Salesforce’s very own streaming service) to offer a combination of live-streamed and on-demand events. Now that in-person events are back in business, Dreamforce has adopted a hybrid approach to reach an even wider audience.
From choosing which workshops to attend, to booking your accommodation, this ‘complete guide’ will tell you everything you need to know – while only limited information has been released about Dreamforce ’23, here’s what you can expect from past events.
What Is Dreamforce?
At its core, Dreamforce is an annual conference that aims to bring the Salesforce community together to share and learn. As one of the largest global tech events, the 180,000+ attendees can expect to enjoy a spectacle of Salesforce innovations, as well as countless training sessions and presentations from visionary keynote speakers.
Dreamforce encourages attendees to share their stories and celebrate their successes in the technology industry. Described as “more than just a conference”, this unique event focuses on:
- Learning
- Getting inspired
- Giving back
- Having fun – scroll to the Parties section below!
Yes please – sign me up!
When Is Dreamforce?
Dreamforce takes place each year during autumn (fall), often in September. This year’s event is due to take place September 12-14. We’ll let you know when registration opens for 2023’s event.
Dreamforce 2022
For 2022, tickets started at $1,599, rising to $1,999 once the “early bird” tickets were snapped up!
Here are some key highlights:
- There were a lot more tickets available (compared to 5K in 2021).
- 120K people attended online.
- 25K square footage was allocated for booths – that’s a lot of partner activity!
- There were over 1,400 breakouts and sessions.
- All this took place over three days: September 20-22, 2022.
Where Is Dreamforce?
San Francisco has been the official home of Dreamforce since its launch in 2003.
From a virtual experience in 2020, to a hybrid event the following year, 2022 followed in 2021’s footsteps by offering global access to a mixture of live and on-demand events via Salesforce+. So, if you didn’t manage to get tickets, you could always tune in online.
With a wealth of free original series and special episodes available to watch, the Salesforce+ platform offers stress-free access to great content – minus the plane journey!

Who Attends Dreamforce?
Admins, developers, architects, newbies, and Trailblazers alike. Dreamforce is for everyone working in the Salesforce ecosystem – everyone across every team, in every industry around the world.
With over 180,000 attendees in previous years, you’ll be in good company!
What’s on the Agenda?
The full 2022 Dreamforce agenda can be accessed here – it included over 1,100 sessions over the 3-day event. Attendees were invited to watch keynotes for favorite products, alongside smaller more intimate sessions on pretty much any topic you can imagine!
Here’s what you can expect:
- Main keynote: This is the place to hear all about the latest and greatest Salesforce announcements.
- Dreamfest: Time to let off some steam and party at the baseball stadium with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers!
- True to the Core: This is your chance to ask senior Salesforce execs your burning questions. Previous Q&As have asked when Workflow Rules and Salesforce Classic will be retired. Juicy!
- High-profile interviews: You can also expect to see some legendary speakers at Dreamforce. Previous speakers include Barack and Michelle Obama, David Beckham, and Stephen Curry.
Where to Stay?
As mentioned earlier, Dreamforce attracts a LOT of people to San Francisco, so competition for accommodation can be fierce! Once you’ve booked your tickets, your next step should be booking somewhere to stay.
We recommend booking early to secure not only a bed, but also a more affordable rate – inevitably, Dreamforce can see prices soar. We also recommend filtering your online search to include accommodation that offers free cancellation. Covid is still out there, after all, and while many hotel policies reflect this, it’s always best to check before you commit.
In terms of location, we suggest looking in downtown San Francisco. There will be plenty of walking to and from events, and public transport is bound to be busy during Dreamforce week. As always, plan in advance according to your own agenda to maximize your enjoyment of the event (and minimize time wasted).
Take a look at:
- Official Dreamforce Hotels: When you register for Dreamforce, you will be presented with a range of hotels to book alongside your ticket. Salesforce has agreements in place with these hotels that allow them to get a preferential rate for their attendees. While these accommodations may not be cheap, they should be relatively reasonable.
- Hotel Comparison Sites: If the Dreamforce hotels don’t take your fancy (or if they are sold out), hotel comparison websites are a fairly safe bet. Booking.com, Hotels.com, Kayak, and Expedia are all good options, but it’s worth noting that these are likely to be more expensive than the Dreamforce hotels.
- Alternative Accommodation: Sites like Airbnb, FlipKey, and Vrbo are great alternatives to hotels as you can rent a whole property or a private room – perfect if you are traveling in a group and would rather have that ‘home away from home’ vibe.
- Hostels: Although you might be picturing dormitories packed full of people, there are plenty of great luxury hostels in San Francisco available for a fraction of the price – you can even book your own private room. HI San Francisco is just a 5-minute walk to Moscone, and it’s bound to be full of Dreamforce attendees!
- Out of Town: If none of the above options work for you, San Fran’s BART system will deliver you to Moscone from various places outside the city center. These will be a lot cheaper than neighboring hotels to Moscone, and you will only be looking at around 30 minutes of travel time.

Dreamforce Parties
Dreamforce is a fantastic place to learn, network, and progress your career. And there are also some pretty amazing parties for letting off steam.
Official Salesforce events include the legendary “Dreamfest”, which has been headlined by some of the world’s biggest acts, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, The Foo Fighters, and The Killers. You can also expect pop-up surprise parties, where you might be lucky enough to catch artists like Flo Rida and Macklemore.
Alongside the official Salesforce events, there are a huge number of partner parties hosted by Salesforce Consulting and AppExchange partners. Check out our full list of parties to see where guests headed in 2022. We’ll be working on another party list ready for next year’s Dreamforce.
What’s Next?
Now that you have the lowdown on all things Dreamforce, you can start thinking about seeing this iconic conference in action for yourself – whether that’s in person or online. Tickets for 2023’s event will be available soon – stay tuned!
Mark Bruso
I suspect Dreamforce 2020 will be a scaled back virtual only event. It will be too early to gather 170K in downtown San Francisco.
Elisabeth Kooijmans
Of course it is on Sukkot!
Ron
Yeh what’s with that?? Surely Marc B is aware!!
Stuart Edeal
According to the article at SFchronicle, you have the answer to one of your questions: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Dreamforce-is-coming-back-to-S-F-with-a-16208549.php
The headline there states they will invite 5,000 guest attendees for the in-person event and they are mandating they all be vaccinated.
At that number of guests, I would imagine it will be a special-invite-only event for those who are asked to join them in person.
Ben McCarthy
Thanks a lot for the info Stuart
Ana
We’d love to participate! Will depend on how they’re inviting sponsors. I.e. are they only inviting top tier sponsors? Will top tier sponsors get first dibs at the in-person programs? I wish they’d release more info for partners as many of us are already working on Q3 plans. Thanks for the update!
Sara Thomas
I’m glad it will also be virtual. Not everyone can be vaccinated, and even if they are, not everyone is comfortable with crowded indoor events, and those people should still have the chance to take part.
Tom from Germany
“Dreamforce” in Paris and London outdoors, with <200 participants is a joke. What is this? A flagpole, 2 mascots and a small stage? I think rather cancel it, than calling this "Dreamforce".
Also not being able to announce any mode of attendance 6 weeks before the event shows the struggle they have.
I think we can wipe this from our agendas for this year. Hope to be back in SFO next year with the crowd!
Ben McCarthy
Hey Tom,
It is a shame that we won’t see a full-scale Dreamforce this year. However, with the Slack acquisition completing, I’m sure we will see some big announcements as per a normal year at Dreamforce!
Ben
Mary Boissel
The Pandemic has thrown up all sorts of changes which will affect us all. Looking forward to hearing about all these changes and how they will improve how we work and how we live. Have a few general themed talks that will encourage discussion.
Katie
Has anyone heard an updated attendance number? I heard it has gone from 5k to 2k, but haven’t been able to verify that anywhere.
Chris
All I’ve seen is an article from the SF Chronicle on the 26th which states that attendance has been scaled back to “hundreds”.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/Dreamforce-convention-will-be-limited-to-hundreds-16414414.php
Arr
I don’t know how they picked the in person invites, but I got mine on Friday. I didn’t even notice that email til I got a follow up reminder today—I didn’t even think they were doing in person events this year.
The only thing I can think of is that the email is addressed “Calling all Trailblazers”. So maybe they picked randomly from that pool?
Nishant Sinha
How to watch the sessions that you have missed? I’m in CEST timezone so most of them are late night for me so cannot watch them live:(
Christine Marshall
They should be available to watch on Salesforce+ although there could be a slight delay – https://www.salesforce.com/plus/
cookie clicker
Oh right? Thanks for shairng!
edusurf
Oh right? Thanks for shairng yeah
LaShon Wilson
Will there be any expo+ tickets this year?
Tom
Why do you seem to recycle the article “Complete guide to dreamforce” by just changing the name instead of writing an updated one. It really makes no sense reading comments related to Dreamforce 2020 here….
May I suggest you create a new posting dedicated only to Dreamforce 2022?
Thanks,
Tom
Christine Marshall
Hi Tom,
This article provides a general overview of what Dreamforce is for those who may be new to the ecosystem, as well as information specific to this years event.
In light of the global pandemic, Dreamforce has been a very different event for the past few years. The Salesforce ecosystem is growing all the time and there will be many newcomers to the community who won’t know what Dreamforce was like pre-Covid or what to expect from this years event. It’s important to share this information with them, as well as the ways Dreamforce changed and shifted to accommodate the “new normal” of virtual events in 2020 and 2021.
Dreamforce 2022 takes place in September and, as such, some information is not yet available – for example, we won’t have details about parties or the full agenda until much closer to the event itself. Although we don’t have the complete details yet, isn’t it worth letting our readers know what to potentially expect?
If you have very strong opinions on what content should or should not be included in this guide, or information you feel we’ve missed that you can provide, then I would love for you to let us know.
Christine
Tom
Hi Christine! Absolutely agree and the information is useful… I was referring to the comments section that obviously consists of comments to “Complete Guide to Dreamforce 2020” and “Complete Guide to Dreamforce 2021”!
This means comments look very irrelevant which is a pity.
But maybe it’s just me or I am not reading them correctly… so ignore. 😉
Christine Marshall
Hi Tom,
I see – that makes a bit more sense! There are reasons we use the same URL/post to do with SEO and so on!
Hermest
I don’t recognise how they picked the in person invitations, but I got mine on Friday. I didn’t even word that email til I got a follow up reminder today—I didn’t even suppose they had been doing in character activities this 12 months.
The most effective element I can think of is that the email is addressed “Calling all Trailblazers”. So maybe they picked randomly from that pool?
Katerina
Can you please tell me more about the vaccination requirements for DreamForce Sept 2022 event? Is there an option to provide a negative test result instead of vaccination card?
Ming
This will be my first in-person Dreamforce. Very excited! But I’m struggling to find how to register for sessions or the dates/times of the sessions from the session catalog? Will there be an app? How do we build out our personalized schedule of sessions?
Christine Marshall
The session times have not yet been released! We anticipate them being available next week. You’ll then be able to add them to your favorites and build your schedule.
Jamie B
Do we have any information on expo hall hours, exhibitors, etc? I couldnt find anything on the official website or their facebook page and I really wanted to make a point to schedule with some vendors we are looking for…got any info???
Chris Bruzzi
You can find the list of vendors who will be on the expo floor on the official Dreamforce website here: https://reg.salesforce.com/flow/plus/dreamforce22/SponsorListing/page/SponsorListPage
KWhite
Does anyone have visibility into which editors and press will be attending and publishing during Dreamforce?