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

brentozar.com

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

#71

Post by miladyincontrol »

Aurornis wrote: post #31

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. - Sele…

Your point about resume badges of honor is what really jaded me leading up to their decline around covid.

Even before all the LLM nonsense as of late I saw way too many events which had speakers that honestly just had nothing interesting to say who just seemed to be regurgitating 3rd hand information. Just the bare minimum to have gotten in front of people.

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

#72

Post by bonoboTP »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #10
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #3

Since covid required/allowed/enabled it, people want to hide out in their houses. They get takeout or delivery and watch streaming and go online instead of getting out in the world as often. We've started down the path to being the Wall-E society. As someone who likes getting out of the house, I don't understand the why.

My take is less "the mindless hordes crave darkness and ennui" and more "the owner class is squeezing the working classes harder than ever, and so those people optimize things to be lower cognitive overhead or less effort, that they otherwise would like to do the slower but more fulfilling way, in an attempt to eke out any semblance of freedom or free time." Being able to just "get out of the house" implies you're no…

This is the easy explanation, but doubtful. Similarly people blame costs for having fewer children. Except people aren't objectively worse off than before. People in poor countries manage to socialize just fine.

I think it's more a mismatch with subjective expectation. Combined with news, social media, plenty of infinite entertainment on tap tailored to you, apps for food delivery, etc. It's a better bet on the day to day timescale than even talking to neighbors (for free), who likely don't align with your interests and online bubbles. And anyway everyone is likely to move soon, no sense in investing time. The benefits would only accumulate slowly over a long time, so people don't bother. Feedback cycles must be quick. And social media also turns hobbies and hanging out into competition. You can and often feel like you're supposed to obsess over the details of the hobby, see better gear on YouTube, people doing it much better than you ever will, so watching is just good enough.

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

#73

Post by ghaff »

BrentOzar wrote: post #5
bdcravens wrote: post #2

Conferences aren't always a great use of our time, but it allowed us a social escape valve, and it seems to me that just isn't the case anymore. 10 years ago, you'd go to a conference and there would be a massive group conversation about it on Twitter. Not just sessions, but people wanting to get together, eat, drink, and be merry. A simple hashtag search pretty much gave you a quick avenue to meet new people. Now th…

You're right - Twitter used to generate FOMO amongst those not attending, plus make it easier for attendees to coordinate after-hours events. Both of those factors are diminished.

Twitter used to be a huge conference backchannel. But, as far as I can tell, that's largely gone and neither Mastodon nor Bluesky have really recreated the Twitter of old. I have accounts on all three and I barely look at them and many others I know are the same.

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

#74

Post by nozzlegear »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #56
bonoboTP wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you even mean. Education system in what sense? What do you mean by "progress"? What do you mean by "there"? Do you mean teachers somehow making sure that kids socialize in ways that aren't "hallway-track-y"? I genuinely can't decipher this comment.

Sorry. I meant compared to 25 years ago when I was in school, there are now tons of programs and special statuses and institutional accommodations that students can be granted to level the playing field based on things like diagnosed anxiety. In my day, I’d be called a little bitch and to put up with it.

This comment sort of smacks of the same complaints that older generations have been expressing for centuries: "kids these days have it so much easier than we did!"

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

#76

Post by bonoboTP »

nozzlegear wrote: post #74
kridsdale1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. I meant compared to 25 years ago when I was in school, there are now tons of programs and special statuses and institutional accommodations that students can be granted to level the playing field based on things like diagnosed anxiety. In my day, I’d be called a little bitch and to put up with it.

This comment sort of smacks of the same complaints that older generations have been expressing for centuries: "kids these days have it so much easier than we did!"

I think the current day complaints seem to be the reverse. That kids are more anxious than ever, more lonely, more mental health problems, less freedom for unstructured play and independence, less "slack" in the system, strong expectations and competition and overscheduled life, helicopter parenting, etc. etc. Of course nobody has a comprehensive proposal to address it because it's all an aggregate effect of individually well-intentioned decisions to promote safety etc., and many of those decisions are interrelated with other consequences around this nexus.

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

#77

Post by cjbgkagh »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #66
cjbgkagh wrote: post #51

Just got back from an In-Person conference, as a vendor the cost was $8K, up from $6K for the same thing last year so a 30% YoY increase. The $6K last year already felt like we were being gouged. I may end up cutting back and going every second year. For 3 days if we rented a 30" screen and a stand it would have cost $2.2K and $350 respectively - I brought my own monitor and stand. Other vendors buy monitors each yea…

I was just going to write: >>"because everybody is BROKE?!?!" ...but I didn't want to offend anybody with `whining` [I'm an average net-worth, for my age, US blue collar worker]. ---- Here are my whines of thought: I think the thing many of my brothers (three multi-millionaires, I am not) fail to see at the moment is that the "bottom majority" is having an increasingly "really bad time" existance. Myself, I have zero…

As inequality grows, regardless of the mechanism, the proportion who benefit will decrease. The top 10% that benefited from the initial increase will find themselves on the wrong side of it as the process continues.

I supply a low cost alternative software option so cost pressures on customers tends to improve sales so that helps a bit with recession resistance up to a point. Though more customers are choosing to do without any alternative which means it must be really rough out there as such software is pretty essential to their work.

It’s hitting the top end of the market as well, the large staffs and debts mean they have to extract more money from a declining customer base that is less able to pay. It’s bad enough even these big multinationals can’t afford to build new features and are choosing to instead exit various markets to focus on their most profitable products. This will only work short term as the less profitable parts were effectively a loss leader for the profitable ones and shouldn’t really be considered a separate offering. They appear to have entered a terminal decline, and it seems that some of them know this and are gouging on their way out.

Multiply this across N industries and it looks like this stagflation / recession is just getting warmed up.

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

#78

Post by ghaff »

rwmj wrote: post #70
Apreche wrote: post #26

I have seen some events doing very well and some doing very poorly. There are some factors not mentioned here. The biggest is cost. Travel, especially lodging, is very expensive right now in major cities, especially in the US. People just can’t afford hundreds per night. If an event has a larger population density within reach of walking, driving, and public transportation then more people turn up. Another is industr…

I'm going to KVM Forum next week, and it's going to cost €1100 for 3 nights(!) Most is the cost of the hotel (€600). Europe doesn't do Japanese-style business hotels with single rooms with a compact bathroom and low prices, so you end up booking a big double room for each person.

$300-$400/night is pretty normal in a lot of large US cities these days. Nothing luxurious, nothing really downscale, but pretty average.

Honestly, brands like Yotel (compact smaller rooms) aren't really much cheaper if any.

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

#80

Post by lazide »

Aurornis wrote: post #42
RajT88 wrote: post #12

I 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.

> 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. 1 and 2 are related, at least in my experience. Sending people to conferences was really…

Yikes, that last one sounds like straight up embezzlement?
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