A Wren Says

These past two days, I have been recounting my experience at sephoria. Now, it is time to consider was it really worth it. Perhaps, depending on what you were looking for.

Monetary value

The General Admission ticket was $135. VIP was $420. You might be saying to yourself, that is way too expensive definitely not worth it. But consider that each ticket gets you a swag bag. The general admission swag bag contained 29 mini and full size products valued at $710, based on their prices on the Sephora website. It also included 8 deluxe samples and 4 fragrance samples that I did not include in the calculations. The VIP swag bag was valued at $1382 with 41 items in full and mini size, in addition to 4 fragrance samples and 1 deluxe body spray. From a numbers perspective, the value of the ticket was more than returned with the swag. On top of that, each booth passed out samples, some were giving out commercially available mini  and full size products. If you are trying to get the best bang for your buck, it was definitely worth it.

Interactions with brands

The event gave me time to talk to brand representatives all in one place, learn about new products, and meet the founders. But if your goal is to make sure that you check off every single booth, that might not be possible. Even if you have a VIP ticket you likely won’t be able to see everything. You can’t go to every booth attend master classes. If you don’t have the time or money to spend, you have to make a plan for which booths are most important for you to hit up. But if you want to experience it all. You really need to get multiple passes. And because you have to buy multiple passes to fully experience the event, that does drop the value down per ticket.

A calm atmosphere

Then absolutely not. Do not come to this event if you can’t or won’t handle crowds. There will be people everywhere. You will be standing in lines to get in and once you are inside. People will likely bump into you as they rush to see their favorite brand. I will say, if you want a more chill atmosphere, day 1 seemed a bit chiller as most people were either working or still traveling down on the Friday. Day 2 was packed, and the lines got ridiculous. If you want to avoid standing in line, you also have to avoid the most viral, popular brands.

The final question, “Was it worth it to me?” Absolutely, I enjoyed having all of the engagements with brands that were new to me and learning new things about staple products. I have a lot of products to try and gift. And I didn’t’ mind a line or two. If this event happens again next year, I will definitely look into attending.