Programme

Build Boldly. Build Together.

Three days. Eight verticals. Six stages. Two nights of festival across Johannesburg (venue TBA). Here's the shape of what's coming — the minute-by-minute run-sheet unlocks for ticket holders closer to the event.

The shape of the days

Three days, two nights, one street.

Mon 8 Feb

Opening Night

Doors open. Hype reel and theme reveal on the Main Stage. A surprise headline fireside, the opening toast and a soft-close drinks-and-intros in the foyer. One stage, one room, one beginning.

Wed 10 Feb

Day One + Night One

All six stages live from morning. Sector talks, workshops, demos, live podcast tapings and the weird stage. At sundown the Strip lights pink and Night One begins — hosted experiences across restaurants, rooftops and lounges.

Thu 11 Feb

Day Two + Closing Night

Second day on all six stages, closing keynote on the Future of Work, then the walk to the Festival footprint. Closing Night is the showcase — sector dinners, the Dealroom After-Dark, and the Skyline farewell.

Eight verticals in scope

What we cover — and why.

No two same-sector talks run concurrently. Delegates physically walk between stages — the walk is the networking.

AI

Foundation models, applied intelligence, the African data layer.

FinTech

Payments, lending, capital markets and the rails underneath.

LegalTech

Contracts, compliance and access-to-justice tooling.

SaaS

Vertical SaaS, infrastructure and the new B2B playbook.

SalesTech

Revenue operations, CRM intelligence and the tooling that turns pipeline into predictable growth.

MarTech

Brand, growth and the measurement that holds it up.

PropertyTech

Real estate, construction and the built-environment stack.

Future of Work

Distributed teams, automation and what work becomes next.

Six stages

Every stage has a job.

The Foundry

Main Stage

Keynotes, headline panels, opening and closing — the room everyone returns to.

The Workshop Floor

Hands-on

Working studio for students and founders. Capped, sign-up only, no spectators.

The Exchange

Salon & fireside

Cabaret seating, two leather chairs, the conversational stage where firesides land.

The Lab

Demos & teardowns

Sector talks, build demos and product teardowns by the people who shipped them.

The Podcast Booth

Live from PinkTag

Live-recorded episodes with an intimate seated audience. Content that lives on.

The Pit

The weird one

Pitch & Roast, Reverse Panel, Confessions, Dealroom — the formats people WhatsApp about.

"Six is the largest number that still lets a delegate sample four sessions in a morning without missing transit. The mingling is engineered, not hoped for."

From the programme memo

Formats on the floor

Not your usual conference talks.

Founder Live Pitches

Three founders pitch; a panel of operators give brutal-but-loving feedback.

Unfiltered Fireside

Anonymous-question format. The audience drops Qs into a box, the host reads them.

Build-in-Public Demo

An engineer ships a feature live, narrating the decisions as they go.

The Reverse Panel

The audience IS the panel. One expert host fields and synthesises.

Dealroom

Speed-format. Investors at tables, founders rotate every six minutes.

Office Hours

Sector experts at small tables. Walk-up Q&A, no appointment needed.

The Swap

Two operators trade jobs for twenty minutes and report back what they learned.

Night Networking Festival

The day belongs to ideas. The night belongs to deals.

Two evenings of hosted experiences across restaurants, rooftops, speakeasies, cigar lounges and gallery spaces — every venue within ten minutes' walk. Engineered serendipity: investors with founders, media with sponsors, exhibitors with buyers.

Cap Table

Investor-only speakeasy. Discreet, gated, the room where the term sheets start.

Dealroom After-Dark

Speed-format investor × founder, twelve shortlisted founders, branded scorecards.

Pool Deck Tastings

Open-air mixer with food trucks, brand activations and the Strip lit pink end-to-end.

The Newsroom Lounge

Quiet filing room for media. Fast Wi-Fi, an espresso bar, daily briefing slot.

Sector Dinners ×4

Four hosted tables — one per vertical pairing. Engineered seating, no podium.

Skyline Closing

DJ set and dancing 220 metres up. The goodbye, then the soft close.

What's deliberately not here yet

Speaker names, session titles and the minute-by-minute run-sheet drop for ticket holders roughly four weeks before the event. We protect the detail to protect the experience — and to keep a few surprises on the Main Stage.

Get a ticket. Unlock the run-sheet.

Tickets from R250. Limited capacity at every tier — the Workshop Floor sells out first.