No one really talks about this when discussing physical industry events. People don't go for the content. Here and there you may learn something in a session or you may get the chance to listen to someone live whom you admire or wanted to get access to. But this isn't the major draw of physical industry events.
You go to be amongst people. You go to interact. It's walking the hallways and hanging out in the lobby that leads to the serendipity that has facilitated so many deals over the years. You attend to be seen and to show that you are part of the community. You want to catch up on the gossip your industry friends will only share over beers or cocktails at the evening events. You run into former colleagues and get an update on what they are up to. Or you find new and interesting people whom you may want to work with or hire in the future. I've already written a similar post on this a couple months back.
Nevertheless, there are also the varied reasons no one will admit. You want to get out of the house. A couple days away from your spouse always does the psyche good. Your nagging kids disappear. You want to indulge your alcoholism and go out and get sloshed on free drinks and expense-account driven benders. You want to sleep in cause hey, who really needs to go to that breakfast session or show up before 10am anyway. Or why bother sleeping and just hook up each night because "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". Heck, skip a whole day and hang out by the pool if the venue is in a vacation destination. You are networking, right?
It's not a coincidence that many events take place in wonderful locations. It's also no coincidence that Vegas is what Vegas is. I'm not judging. You be you and have your reasons for attending conferences. What I do wonder is where we go from here? I haven't been to a physical industry event for close to a year. I did participate in a virtual event by being physically in the studio but very little of the sideshow that conferences facilitate was present. It was....different. I'm also tired of the virtual events and to be frank, am shocked that people would pay for many of these. I doubt they are. My inbox is full of free invites.
On one hand, I feel there is such pent-up demand that as soon as a vaccine arrives and travel resumes, conferences will explode. Everyone will again want to get out of the house and these events will be packed. On the other hand, business can be facilitated without. How much of a need was there for these conferences, which hadn't changed their general modus operandi for 50 years? Will events even resemble events of the past? It may be quite some time before people aren't concerned about being in close proximity with thousands of people from the world over. Have the norms of younger generations also changed for there to be no return to what once was?
I don't really have an answer yet but I am finding this ongoing thought exercise interesting. I'm not missing conferences and the respective travel. But I do miss hanging out with my peers and some of the "crazy" that was the sideshow of events.