Salesforce Announces Annual Dreamforce Conference Will Stay In SF For Next Three Years

Salesforce CEO and Founder Marc Benioff announced on Thursday that Dreamforce, one of San Francisco’s largest yearly conferences and the largest event for the software company, will be staying in the city for the next three years following a near complete pull out of the city coming only last year.

For years, Benioff has been a defender of the city, and has backed many of the efforts in San Francisco to tackle the city’s homeless problems. Most notably, he was one of the largest proponents of Proposition C, a business tax that would pump more money into city homeless services. But, despite his support, the situation worsened in San Francisco in the 2020s. Homelessness figures have significantly worsened, with the city now having a worse homelessness rate than Seattle or Los Angeles. Drug use has also skyrocketed, with the number of fentanyl deaths this year being on pace to set a new city record.

These factors, as well as others like escalating crime situation in the city, have led to major company pullouts and layoffs in recent years, as well as the headquarters of companies such as Oracle and Tesla moving out of state because of tax reason. Since October of 2022, San Francisco, as well as surrounding Bay cities, have lost tens of thousands of jobs because of mass layoffs. Office vacancy in the city also reached a high of over 37% in Q2 2024.

The situation also affected Salesforce, one of San Francisco’s premier tech firms. It began with Dreamforce attendees e-mailing Benioff to complain about the situation in the city. However, like other companies, this began to decline as well. In January 2023, Salesforce cut 10% of their staff, or around 7,000 people, due in large part to overhiring people during the pandemic. The vacancy crisis also affected the company, with Salesforce leaving an entire office building, known as Salesforce East, in April 2023.

This all led to an announcement in August of last year that the annual Dreamforce conference, an annual event that brings tens of thousands of people to San Francisco each year and contributes over $50 million to the local economy, could be moving out due to homelessness and drug problems. Major issues with the November 2023 APEC conference and high-profile issues this year, such as Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) being robbed of his luggage in the city in April and the shooting of San Francisco 49ers player Ricky Pearsall in Union Square late last month, also lessened the city’s odds of keeping Dreamforce.

Despite the continuing major problems in the city, Salesforce defied what they had been planning and instead signed a three year agreement to keep the conference in San Francisco during the 2024 conference on Thursday, with the conference to stay at the Moscone Center through 2027. Salesforce cited that that the AI boom being centered in San Francisco, as well as San Francisco still being the hub of computer and technology companies in the country, helped lead to Dreamforce staying in the city for the near future.

“We signed an agreement. We’re going to be here for three more years as long as it remains safe and secure and trusted. We’re going to keep coming back,” said Benioff on Thursday. “The city is the hub of AI development, where inspiration and innovation are constantly around the corner. I really think that being in San Francisco, you’re having those moments all the time. This is the home of all of the greatest computer scientists and breakthroughs that are happening. You know we have a great city. The city’s never looked better, and I couldn’t be happier.”

Dreamforce returns while many other conventions leave

However, event experts said that San Francisco needs more than just Dreamforce returning to bounce back in terms of event and city revenue from the events.

“Dreamforce coming back was just a little blip following all they have lost, and continue to lose,” said large event organizer Shannon Krieger. “Google, Meta, Samsung, IBM, and other tech companies pulled their conferences out of the city either last year or this year, and some of those were bigger than Dreamforce. Google’s gigantic Cloud Next conference moved to Las Vegas. IBM’s Red Hat Summit moved to Denver. Other tech conferences moved to New York, Austin, and Los Angeles. Dreamforce staying is such a big deal because it is staying in San Francisco.

“San Francisco still has some pretty big ones, like TechCrunch Disrupt. But they lost so many others. And that means thousands of open hotels. Restaurants don’t get expected business. Taxis and rideshares get hurt. Local shops get hurt. And during this time, look at cities like Los Angeles and San Diego. They’re getting more of these big events and keeping the big ones they have. L.A. kept their giant Auto show. Anaheim kept D23.  San Diego’s Comic Con bounced back. And look at the big things other cities are getting too. L.A. has the Olympics in four years, and the World Cup in two. San Francisco is missing out on that too, with Santa Clara getting games from that instead.

“San Francisco is continuing to struggle, and one way to keep money flowing through is bringing in conventions and other large events. They are amazing cash infusions. Their downtown could really benefit, as many parts are still a ghost town. But no. The crime and drugs and everything are still scaring people away. They just had a football player shot there. That doesn’t exactly attract conventions.

“San Francisco won a battle in getting Dreamforce to coming back, but overall, they are still losing the war. And they’re only doing this well because AI is on the rise right now.”

The 2024 conference is expected to generate up to $93 million in revenue for the city.