Why Are You Not Attending Events Anymore?

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What do events/conferences/design festivals/younameit mean to you? I'd be interested in a conversation.

Speaking to a lot of event organisers recently, one issue is one they all share these days: less and less people attend their in-person events. But why?

❓ Are people generally not seeing the benefit of attending in-person events anymore?

❓ Is going to events not affordable for individuals and/or companies anymore (travel, accommodation, food and ticket add up)?

❓ Do people think that virtual events and workshops are equally working for them as in-person conferences and workshops?

❓ Is the networking aspect these days unimportant (fostering the existing network as well as growing it and meeting new people)?

❓ Do people simply don’t know and hear of especially smaller, independent events anymore (since social media is scattered all over the place, building smaller bubbles of interest and most of the platform dictated by the algorithms to be seen)?

❓ Is Covid still something why you don’t attend events?

I am honestly interested in learning about this. Why? At any of the events I attend (or run myself) people are full of praise afterwards, absolutely happy that they have been there. So why are events these days so hard to sell to people?

It would be great to hear you. No matter if you still attend events or if you stopped or never actually went to events – let me know why and I post the outcome here (or if you prefer, also on Linkedin).

Responses

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6 Comments

  • Melissa Fehr Melissa Fehr

    @btconf Easy - Covid risk, both in the travel to/from and during the conference itself.

  • Fabien Fabien

    The realisation that flying over to attend a few days of talks in a foreign country wasn't worth the climate impact and ecological and societal damage.Also: kids. Not unrelated to the first point.

  • niorad niorad

    Before Kids/Pandemic/2020 I used to attend regularly, but with the years I just had less and less energy left, and got more introverted, too. Also my interest in keeping up with tech is waning, and especially with the annoying AI hype I'm trying to minimize tech-news-consumption to zero. Covid-Pandemic is a (smaller) factor, but I wouldn't mind masking all the way.

  • Andrew Foster Andrew Foster

    We run a small event and we have a hard core of regular attendees. I think it is more difficult to move the curious or interested potential attendees to buy tickets due to several factors including overall cost (travel, event price, accommodation, food etc) plus a general trend of increased introversion in society. For our space, sponsorship is limited so ticket prices may also seen as expensive.

  • Terence Eden Terence Eden

    I help organise smaller & free events (hackathons, BarCamps, Meet Ups).We get lots of sign ups - but at least 50% drop out rates.I think we're now competing with other forms of entertainment (Netflix). Because we're free, people don't feel compelled to honour their commitment.And, after a long day / week, who wants to spend their free time working / learning?

  • Nigel Metheringham Nigel Metheringham
    • my always low need for networking has diminished to zero- employer no longer pays for training/events- people start burbling about AI- relative currently being checked out for infection related heart damage - covid is very much a thing- heading towards retirement - no time for bullshit

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