Perceived risk of being caught in a mass shooting is too great to feel comfortable at mass gatherings.
Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
11–20 of 96 posts
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#12I see two things which may have an impact:
1. Conferences require travel budget, which in tech companies (from what I hear) is being repurposed to build out AI capacity. Really, everything is being squeezed like this it seems.
2. A lot of folks only go to cons to network - which also means finding better jobs. There might be some connection between cons and turnover.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#13> But after the pandemic, the release schedules slowed dramatically to once every 3 years, and the new features weren’t really groundbreaking, not requiring deep education to keep up.
This really seems to be the clincher here -- COVID surely contributed, but "post"-COVID if there's not much to talk about, why make the trip?
I'd be curious to hear how often newbies showed up to these SQL events pre-COVID. Was there interest from people outside the regulars? Were people truly excited to learn about SQL technologies?
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#14As mentioned in the article, I think the single biggest reason was that Covid largely showed us that it is not strictly necessary to physically be together for everything. Conferences, announcements, etc all happened virtually and things were largely fine. Sure things like networking were lost (and the associated drinking), and while that was valuable was not necessarily the marketed reason for the events. We see the…
On the contrary it actually showed me the value of person.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#15> But after the pandemic, the release schedules slowed dramatically to once every 3 years, and the new features weren’t really groundbreaking, not requiring deep education to keep up. This really seems to be the clincher here -- COVID surely contributed, but "post"-COVID if there's not much to talk about, why make the trip? I'd be curious to hear how often newbies showed up to these SQL events pre-COVID. Was there in…
> I'd be curious to hear how often newbies showed up to these SQL events pre-COVID.
Large SQLSaturday events used to regularly get 300-400 attendees, and a good 10-20% of them were new to the field. I would regularly do a show-of-hands in my session asking how many of them were attending a SQL Saturday for the first time, and it wasn't unusual to see half the hands go up.
People learn SQL every day, believe it or not.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#16In my social and meetup circle, COVID coincided with all the organizers of my favorite meetups reaching the age where one generally starts to slow down, have kids, and possibly move out of the city for more space and calm.
At that point they had all been running their meetups for 5-10 years, so they were also established in their careers and didn't NEED them anymore. So while keeping an existing meetup running pre-COVID was not exactly easy, it was doable and familiar.
But now, 5 years after COVID, all the longstanding meetups are long enough gone that people nearly have to start from scratch. It's starting to happen, but is a huge uphill battle. For the most part, I suspect it will be a new generation of organizers, but they'll be learning all the same lessons again, in a much less interesting and more hostile tech environment.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#17I love conferences and talks and wish I could go to them more — what stops me is the sudden drop in corporate sponsorship of them. It’s been nearly impossible to convince leadership to spend money to train their employees or to socialize within their own discipline, and while I’d love to go to conferences, taking time out of my own PTO and my own wallet to see them isn’t worth it.
> what stops me is the sudden drop in corporate sponsorship of them.
That's true in two ways: not only are less companies paying to send their attendees to training, but less companies are paying to sponsor these events as well.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#18Perceived risk of being caught in a mass shooting is too great to feel comfortable at mass gatherings.
That isn't a new phenomenon.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#19Do you know the reasons why people (including you) don't want in-office jobs? Now multiply these reasons by 10.
Instead of 1 hour commute, have an airplane travel or a couple hours drive. Instead of hours in a cubicle, have an hotel. And now add more expenses and crappy food.
Sure, the "social interactions" in a pub might be more pleasant than the "water-cooler side chat" but they won't be much more productive.
Socializing is overrated.
Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?
#20As mentioned in the article, I think the single biggest reason was that Covid largely showed us that it is not strictly necessary to physically be together for everything. Conferences, announcements, etc all happened virtually and things were largely fine. Sure things like networking were lost (and the associated drinking), and while that was valuable was not necessarily the marketed reason for the events. We see the…
On the contrary it actually showed me the value of person.
It did for me too, I still travel to some things.
But it did show me that a lot of things were unnecessary to travel too and were just fine virtually.
It isnt go back to how it was before or all virtual, there is a middle ground of traveling and in person when it is actually valuable instead of just being yet another conference.