How to get the most out of your UNLEASH America experience

It’s back. UNLEASH America is back.

The international festival of HR will return to the West Coast for the fifth time on April 26th-27th, heading to Caesar’s Forum in Las Vegas: giving over 2,000 senior HR practitioners access to the best and most innovative thought leadership, as well as the inside track on the latest in startup and scaleup technology.

Of course, this is exciting news. 2023’s conference sees a newly expanded expo, a world-class speaker lineup including Erin Meyer, Maurice Conti, and US government official Kiran Ahuja, and chances to view up close the most innovative solutions to your people’s pain points.

Not forgetting, as ever, at UNLEASH America: there’s the chance to have fun, network, and learn with fellow HR professionals at our countless networking events, roundtables, summits, and post-conference parties.

Create your UNLEASH America playbook

Getting the most out of UNLEASH America requires a playbook, some prep beforehand, and a ready-to-learn, ready-to-collaborate mindset.

You can check out the full agenda here but downloading the award-winning UNLEASH Events app is a great place to start.

On it, you can plan your experience on-site, personalize your agenda to your needs, see our floorplan (important for getting from speaker stages to vendor expo stands), and network as and when you want.

You can find and download the app by searching for UNLEASH Events in the App Store or Play store and we do recommend downloading it before arriving onsite.

But let’s dive in and find out a little bit more about what’s going on.

Registration and tickets are the first port of call for UNLEASH America

Being able to have a great, productive, and fun time as some of our previous delegates  — like the Google attendee who said it was the “most inspiring community” or the UPS guest who said UNLEASH America is amazing and a “real eye-opener” — requires registering for that all-important ticket beforehand.

Luckily, that’s simple. Head over to our UNLEASH America ticket page, to see which conference ticket package is the right one for you — some are free and inclusive of two nights of complimentary accommodation, and we also have VIP tickets, general attendee tickets, vendor, media, and investor tickets and discounts for groups. We’ll even suggest which is most suitable for you.

UNLEASH America welcomes HR to CAESAR’S FORUM

For the first time ever, UNLEASH America is at the 550,000 sq. ft. CAESAR’S FORUM, just around the corner from the world-famous Las Vegas strip.

Our main stage, hosting the biggest-name keynote speakers, will be purpose-built outside in the Forum Plaza — with our conference also extending into the Forum Ballroom, the biggest pillarless ballroom in the world, roughly the size of five football fields. (One of the world’s other biggest ballrooms is also in the same venue!)

The venue is also conveniently linked to 8,500 hotel rooms. For guests at Harrah’s hotel, UNLEASH America is a simple walk across the sky bridge and into the conference. The LINQ is also conveniently located nearby. And for those heading from Caesars Palace hotel you won’t be able to miss us: your entrance, the promenade bridge, is directly beneath the world’s tallest Ferris wheel: the High Roller.

This 550ft mega Ferris wheel is where a lot of networking action will take place: at its foot is where all guests will be able to enjoy breakfasts, cocktail parties, and evening receptions.

Getting registered and getting into Caesar’s is easy too: with clear directions once you’re inside, there’s 8 am access to the show floor and stages for everyone attending from the day before the main show (25th April), the same time as both of our main show days.

And Caesar’s is also perfectly located for airport transfers and nearby hotels. The nearest airport, Harry Reid Airport International Airport, is less than a ten-minute taxi away and the venue is close to Interstate 15.

If you can’t wait to check out where all the fun is going to take place, you can take a 3D tour here.

An action-packed schedule — even before the show officially kicks off

The pre-events, or Day Zero (25 April), are where so much of the action is happening this year — because we know trying to fit all that UNLEASH America conference content into two days is increasingly impossible.

So, for those turning up early, don’t worry: we have you covered. There are some top-quality Day Zero sessions to get involved with: including a session on how HR can balance all the elements of its growing remit; a Josh Bersin-led boot camp on how to build a skills strategy; and a session on getting behind HR tech with McDonald’s head of global digital HR transformation.

Join us at our high-energy summits

Day Zero doesn’t stop there, though.

We are also hosting pre-event peer-learning summits. We have a summit for vendors, to help with knowledge sharing and understanding of who the key HR tech players are, a summit on HR tech and transformation in order to learn from each other in the face of volatility, and a talent acquisition summit to update attendees on the latest shifts via multiple sessions.

However, our highest energy and the biggest summit will follow at the end of day one (26th April). Open to all conference delegates and VIPs, FESTIVAL: The UNLEASH Night Summit is a chance to mix with fellow HR leaders in a beer garden, play mini golf and even experience the Top Golf entertainment experience. It’s guaranteed to be a party like no other.

Applications to attend all of these summits are open now. Click on the above links in this section or find them on our agenda page.

Big stages, big names

UNLEASH America would be nothing without its superstar speakers.

Attendees at our US conference have always come to expect the best, brightest, and most innovative HR gurus speaking across multiple stages, at product launches and intimate learning sessions.

This kicks off in earnest on the morning of 26th April with a main stage — also known as the future of work stage — keynote on recruiting top talent at scale from the Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The same stage closes out at the end of the day with world-renowned futurist Maurice Conti as he explores what tools and mindset are needed for success in the digital age.

Thursday follows the same pattern: with a 9 am main stage keynote from Erin Meyer on navigating cultural complexity kicking us off, followed by a keynote on how to unlock agility from the HRBP at The Estée Lauder Companies. The main stage day two sessions close out with a Novartis-led session on how businesses can co-create value and success with the communities they operate in.

It’s not just about main stage keynotes, though. UNLEASH America has themed stages for all of the verticals of HR: Talent, Recruitment, Innovation, Learning & Skills, Total EX, HR Transformation, Wellbeing, Culture & Purpose, HR Tech, Product Announcements, as well as thought leader-led roundtables and forward-thinking talks on our influencers stage. Check out our agenda to see everything on our UNLEASH America stages.

For instance, on just the morning of the first day at UNLEASH America, you could start off on the recruitment stage learning about much-needed metrics with the VP Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Takeda, catch the end of a session at the HR Tech stage on getting insight from people analytics with the senior director of people analytics at eBay, jump over to the Total EX stage to learn about shaping best-in-class EX, then head over to the learning and skills stage to list to the VP of HR at iFLY talk about the importance of coaching. Phew!

The beauty is, you can craft your agenda to suit your needs: check out all the sessions we have on and do just that here.

The expo is back — and bigger than ever

It’s not just about our speakers. The UNLEASH America expo runs for the whole two days.

More than just a showcase of vendors. This year we’ve scaled up, adding three new sections to the exhibition floor which means we have vendors displaying the latest in HR tech and systems, wearables, VR, Gamification, Telemedicine, Robotics, and Automation across Learning & Skills, Recruitment & Talent, HR Tech and Transformation, and Work Zen.

As ever, the exhibition is a centerpiece of interactivity, excitement, connection, entertainment, and discovery. It’s where those shaping the future of work — from the biggest names, such as Deloitte, Amazon Web Services, HireVue, Visier, workhuman, Rejig, Paradox, and eighfold.ai, to the latest startups — come together to showcase their latest products and services to HR.

Open from 8 am each day, it’s the place to find imagination, inspiration, and cutting-edge ideas.

As one previous attendee said: “It’s the best HR marketplace in the world! Content is amazing.” 

Las Vegas and The Strip

If, somehow, you’ve still got energy outside of our non-stop conference, Las Vegas is the place to explore, engage, and burn it all off.

With UNLEASH America only a stone’s throw east from the famous Las Vegas Boulevard strip — where the city’s best sights, gambling, finest food, and nightlife can be found — you can head over to the 24-hour Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino or the Luxor Hotel, check out regular Strip street performances, shows at the The Chelsea or The Cosmopolitan, or gaze in wonder at the 460ft-high Fountains of Bellagio.

In Las Vegas, one thing is for sure: you’ll never be bored. So what are you waiting for?

Grab your UNLEASH America tickets and join the rest of the HR community, industry-leading vendors, and the world-class speaker lineup.