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Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

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Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#31

Post by Aurornis »

COVID was a tipping point, but the decline was many years in the making. Meetups and conferences in my area were becoming less enjoyable year over year for several reasons:

- They became targets for networking and resume building. Meetups that were previously small groups of highly engaged people were now full of attendees who were looking for job opportunities because LinkedIn told them that was how to do it.

- Selecting good presentations became harder. Once speaking at a meetup or conference became a resume badge of honor, it became a competition to secure the speaking slot at all costs. The previously interesting local talks were getting replaced with entertainment spots, where presenters spent more time showing funny video clips, memes, or even performing live musical pieces to entertain the audience. Discussing the subject matter wasn't a priority.

- Conferences started catering to lowest common denominator attendees to broaden their appeal. Interesting deep dives into highly technical topics started disappearing. They were replaced with basic topics that have been covered to death, such as "How to supercharge your development process with continuous deployment"

- The people I most want to meet up with started transitioning to other activities. Instead of spending my evening on a meetup where the speaker isn't interested in anything other than adding a line to their resume, we now meet up for big group lunches or do outdoor activities together.

- Conference costs kept rising. Organizers realized attendees were expensing the tickets, so they tried to set prices based on what they thought they could get away with charging companies. It became a machine for extracting those personal development budget dollars, not for getting people together efficiently.

- Conference drama. Maybe this is local to me. Every conference seemed to attract a lot of drama: Someone's talk didn't get accepted and they turned it into accusations of bias or favoritism. Conference organizers would have a falling out and try to split into two conferences with a lot of finger-pointing to make people pick a side. Someone was bad with money and ran out of cash, so a conference would be cancelled at the last minute with drama around getting refunds. Someone would try to stir up drama with their presentation or an attendee would accuse someone of a code of conduct violation, turning in months of debate. It all gets so exhausting that I just don't want to be anywhere near it.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#32

Post by dagmx »

Imho the reason is that the value of the events has reduced.

Attendance costs keep rising (including commute and stay).

The content will be on YouTube within a few weeks.

With the popularity of zoom, discourse, discord, slack, I’m socializing with the community more regularly. Also where you’d see a lot of content early.

If I need to network, I can organize a much cheaper dinner and drinks instead of paying for larger events.

International conferences make more sense from a business ROI to intermingle , but local ones are a losing battle of value.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#33

Post by JustARandomGuy »

Cost. I run a small Chicago area “private” meetup (in the sense that one needs to be invited, it’s not publicly advertised) for small business owners. We do workshops on how to advertise using Google ads, do basic web analytics, etc. The skyrocketing cost of meeting rooms and basic catering have gone through the roof. I’m not talking about catering as in lobster and steak; even just getting Panera Bread level food has been ridiculously expensive.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#34

Post by Aurornis »

nerdjon wrote: post #7

As 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…

Opinions are split on this take because people attend conferences for different reasons.

The group who attend conferences to view the talks and absorb material can mostly accomplish the same thing remotely without dealing with travel, hotels, and being away from family. Remote conferences are great for them.

Another group doesn't really care about the content all that much. They went to conferences to walk around, see things, bump into people, go to parties, and have an excuse to travel. This group feels a big loss because the parts they enjoyed the most have been taken away.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#35

Post by mschuster91 »

No corporate travel budgets any more ever since the Russians sent the worldwide economy tanking. If you're not a C-level, you're on your own. Same for "20%" agreements and the likes - companies across the board have fully gone on to "squeeze mode" when it comes to staff. Everyone and their dog is cutting expenses where they can.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#36

Post by dangus »

tasa999nine9 wrote: post #9

> I think the biggest value, and the reason I personally get really excited to attend local and regional events, is the ability to have casual, non-rushed discussions outside of the session rooms. As someone who's been to many meetups and conferences but who's generally unable to partake in "the hallway track" because of a potent cocktail of social anxiety, impostor syndrome and whatever else is going on inside my he…

I don’t think you’ve missed anything. I think these in-person events are declining because they aren’t as valuable as they purport to be, just like the the way in-office facade was destroyed during Covid.

Why is learning stuff in a dingy hotel conference center better than an online community? Face to face time? But tools like Discord can replace that and they cost a whole lot less than plane tickets and hotel rooms.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#37

Post by bonoboTP »

tasa999nine9 wrote: post #9

> I think the biggest value, and the reason I personally get really excited to attend local and regional events, is the ability to have casual, non-rushed discussions outside of the session rooms. As someone who's been to many meetups and conferences but who's generally unable to partake in "the hallway track" because of a potent cocktail of social anxiety, impostor syndrome and whatever else is going on inside my he…

> As someone who's been to many meetups and conferences but who's generally unable to partake in "the hallway track" because of a potent cocktail of social anxiety, impostor syndrome and whatever else is going on inside my head, this makes me quite wistful.

As someone to whom this also doesn't come naturally, I came to realize that this is simply how things are. Real life itself happens in the "hallway track", this is not specific to just meetups and conferences. Business, love, friendship, war, peace, everything. In school, at jobs, in hobbies, etc. It's probably biological. Expecting the world to change and revolve instead around one's anxieties is futile.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#39

Post by the_snooze »

bonoboTP wrote: post #27
nerdjon wrote: post #7

As 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…

> 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. I haven't heard anyone say that things were fine. I and colleagues have participated virtually in ML conferences during covid and people almost unanimously said it was mostly usele…

In my experience, the in-person networking is absolutely the point. If you're a junior researcher, it's really valuable when your more senior collaborator introduces you to new people. Then that snowballs into more contacts. That can really only happen in a relaxed setting like the hallway or during lunch or over after-session drinks. If you try to do this virtually, you're just a random entity on a screen, not a real person. It's not about the exchange of words, but the reality of being around others that enables that kind of professional connection.

Re: Why Aren't People Going to Local and Regional In-Person Events Anymore?

#40

Post by dangus »

bonoboTP wrote: post #27
nerdjon wrote: post #7

As 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…

> 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. I haven't heard anyone say that things were fine. I and colleagues have participated virtually in ML conferences during covid and people almost unanimously said it was mostly usele…

The problem with all this is that you’ve only shown that socializing is fun, not that the amount of ROI you or the company is getting from events is positive.

I’d rather have fun and socialize in ways that have nothing to do with work, and I think younger generations feel even more strongly about that.

The way I see it is that corporate cultures have completely given up on investment in employees. No more tuition reimbursement, no more certification reimbursement, you’re a hired mercenary. They are telling employees straight to their face that they are replaceable temp workers who had better start using AI as much as possible or else they’ll get fired and be replaced with AI anyway.

Why would I want to spend my time going to an industry conference when the industry treats me like shit?

And on this note, how many companies are actually investing in sending employees to conferences? My company even gave up on any sort of team building budget to have my team meet in person, they’re not even willing to pay to have us meet in person once a year. Never mind paying for conference fees and sponsorships.

Conferences that aren’t sales tools have no value to the modern corporation.

From the article:

> I’ve actually talked to folks who decided, “I’ve only got a few years left – I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, the same way, at the same company, until they let me go or until I decide to quit.” LLMs like ChatGPT made it easier to get by without actually knowing what you’re doing – at least in the short term – and that’s all these kinds of people care about.

This is what has been incentivized by companies. Again, they have told us to our face that we are throwaway employees who are not worth investment. We should just use AI and work faster, please.

Where does socializing fit into that world view? Hell, employees who socialize do pesky things like unionize.

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