What is the future of conferences and public speaking?

Perhaps no single industry has been so devastated by the coronavirus crisis as the multi-billion-dollar conference and events business. Countless careers in catering, hospitality, travel, and public speaking (like me!) depend on the future of conferences. We’re all wondering about the future of conferences.

We need these events to come back. But when?

In a recent free strategy paper I published called The Pandemic Business Playbook, I noted that we must think through post-crisis questions like this by assessing probabilities — what are the most likely scenarios?

Public speaking has been an important part of my revenue stream so the “re-opening” of conferences is essential to my business planning. Problem is, I found absolutely no data or projections on the future of conferences that could help me. So I conducted my own research and the results provide an interesting snapshot of what might be occurring in the next 2–3 years. Let’s look at this today.

The process

No government action is going to “re-open” traditional conventions and conferences. PEOPLE will allow conferences to re-open only when they feel safe enough to flock back to those airports, hotels, and convention centers.