Are Virtual Conferences and Summits Dead?

In this episode of The Power Table Podcast, Taylor Smith answers a question she gets asked constantly as someone whose brand runs over 350 virtual and in-person events a year, are virtual conferences and summits dead. Her answer is yes and no. The passive, pre-recorded format from 2020 to 2022 is finished, but live, highly interactive virtual events are doing something completely different right now.

Taylor breaks down exactly what the old virtual summit format looked like, why it worked briefly during the pandemic, and why it stopped working the moment people had other options again. She gets into why pre-recorded content cannot compete with the energy and engagement people are actually craving in 2026, and what hosts and attendees should be looking for instead.

If you have ever registered for a virtual summit and never opened a single replay, or you are deciding whether virtual events are even worth running or attending anymore, this episode lays out exactly what changed and what to look for going forward.

In this episode, we cover:

• What the old virtual summit format looked like, and why the model became exhausted by 2022
• Why passive, pre-recorded content cannot compete with AI tools that can deliver the same information faster
• Why live events create higher stakes, deeper engagement, and real breakthroughs for attendees
• What changed for attendees since the pandemic, and why the bar for virtual events is so much higher now
• How to evaluate any virtual event before committing your time, whether you are hosting or attending
• Why Stand Out & Sell Out shifted from a mix of pre-recorded and live content to being fully live this year

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Power Table. If you are leading your business with a big vision and you're ready for your visibility to match your ambition, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Taylor Smith, founder of the Power Table, serial entrepreneur, and international keynote speaker. I've generated millions in my business for speaking of personal branding and community building, and I'm here to teach you how to do the same as a founder-led brand. Each week, we dive into the business strategies, identity, and leadership work required to become the woman people recognize, trust, and choose again and again. Because your next level isn't just about what you do, it's about who you become in the process. This is your seat at the table. I have a question for you. The last virtual summit or virtual event you attended, did you even show up? Sure, you registered, but did you actually show up and attend? Like fully present, engaged, responding in the community, listening to the sessions, applying the information, or did you register, get the emails, and then never even actually open the links because things got in the way, or you just thought to yourself, I just don't know why I would show up and listen to another presentation today. I've got so many other things on my to-do list. Or maybe you watched the first half of the first session, opened some other tabs on your computer, and then just quietly faded away from the rest of the summit because it wasn't anything that could outcompete your never-ending list of things you have to do. I already know the answer. There's no judgment because this is the same answer that most of us have. No, you weren't fully present. No, you maybe didn't even open the links after registration. No, you weren't fully focused on the sessions. And it's not your fault. And the question of this episode is are virtual conferences and summits dead? Let's find out. Let's talk about it. Welcome back to the Power Table Podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Smith. I have a lot of opinions on this. As someone whose community and brand runs over 350 virtual and in-person events a year across our coaching calls, training programs, and virtual and in-person conferences and events. And a lot of people are talking about virtual summits right now and whether or not they are dead. Should you stop running them? Should you even bother attending them? Are they all the same? Do they even work? What is the value, if you're attending, of seeing the same thing over and over again? Is the whole format finished? Are we just like that was a thing during the pandemic and now we're done? I think the answer is yes and no. And I think it matters a lot that we have this conversation for where online businesses are headed in 2026, 2027. So let's dive right in. Let me just get off the table what we're all thinking, and that is the virtual summit of 2020, 2021, 2022, as we knew it with pre-recorded slides and pre-recorded webinars, all entirely passive for three to five days, is dead. No one's watching them. You might still get registrations, no one's watching them anymore. That format got us through when we were like doing everything at home on Zoom. But that's not a reality anymore. So we can't accept expect that people consume the same content in the same way, nor do they even want to. And for those of you who are in newer to business or maybe newer to the digital products world and you haven't done a lot of summits, attended, or hosted, what the old format or more traditional format looked like was you would register for a free summit. There's a paid ticket or paid upsell option that includes bonuses from all the speakers and usually lifetime access or limited time access to the replays of all the sessions. All the sessions are typically pre-recorded. They're aired on a drip or scheduled timer, and you have a limited time to watch them for free, or you can upgrade to the paid all access or VIP pass in order to get them beyond that limited time. You would get 20 to 40 sessions to watch in three to seven days, which is pretty much impossible for anyone. So then therefore you were more likely to either just choose the sessions you wanted to watch or go ahead and buy that all access pass because there's no way you can consume 40 sessions in a few days. Each session is anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes typically. So that's just like a lot of watching and content consumption and not a lot of implementation or action. The model's exhausted, and honestly, it was exhausted by like 2022. That I think pre-recorded entirely passive format was like a flash in the pan. People don't actually want that. They want connection and implementation. But we just kept doing it because that was the template that existed. And the problem here is not the virtual part. Virtual events are wildly successful right now. The part is also not the summit part or the conference part. People want to learn, they want to improve their skills, they want to have a better life or have a better business. It's the format. It's this idea of like passive pre-recorded content. When now in the AI world, I could get that same amount of information that you would have given me in 45 minutes, in 90 seconds with Claude or ChatGPT. And they also lack energy. And I think people right now are in a place where they want engagement with other people, they want energy, they want excitement and motivation. And you can't get that through pre-recorded sessions. You just can't. So we've arrived at this place where now, if your sessions are prerecorded, if you don't have any live interactive elements at your virtual summit, challenge, or event or webinar, you can expect that people will not complete anything. Engagement will tank, people will drop off because they're just not going to sit there and consume passively. And the reason that this worked initially is because when the pandemic hit, like people had all this time, right? They could sit at home and listen to all of these presentations. They did appreciate the self-paced and the pre-recorded and the flexibility. The bar for format was pretty low because people didn't have anywhere to go or anything else to do. But that's not true anymore. And in 2026 and beyond, we have to become hyper-aware of how people are actually consuming our coaching and content. People have options. They have in-person events now, back to back. They have a thousand things competing for their attention every single day. And so if you want someone to give you three to five days of their life for a virtual summit, like it's just probably not going to happen. Or you've got to give them a reason that they can't get what you're offering anywhere else. And a pre-recorded library of videos in a vault is just not that reason. And they've been burned many times, right? They've also like got really excited, signed up for something, opened their inbox or their presentations, and it was just the same info over and over again. It wasn't that good and it just wasn't interactive, or they were left wondering unsupported how to move forward after watching the presentations. The format worked briefly, but it now is at a point where if you have a pre-recorded virtual event of any kind, you're most likely under delivering for people. I don't think summits are dead. I don't think conferences, I don't think webinars are dead online. I think the passive format itself is dead. And I hope it never comes back. We would much rather connect live and in person. And something really good is happening on the other side of this. The events that are impossible to pre-record everything in a passive format, the events that are irreversibly live, highly interactive, high energy, they are seeing a huge movement of people showing up and really being excited about this kind of virtual event. And I've seen it in my community when people attend our virtual events, whether that's our networking, our virtual conference, our coaching calls, our workshops, any of that live, people get to ask questions. They get to be involved, they get to respond, they get to interact in a way that they couldn't if it's recorded. And that connection really changes things for people and it creates breakthroughs in a much deeper way, which means the energy is different, the retention's different, and the feedback and response from people will be different. And I think a big part of this is because when an event is live, the stakes are higher, not just for you as the organizer, but also for the attendees. If you've chosen to show up live, you're present and you're in it. You get to be there for the moments. And if you walk away, you're gonna miss something, right? So it puts more emphasis on the fear of missing out and also the ability for people to have really positive experiences if they're fully immersed in the moment. So if you're hosting virtual events this year, I highly recommend that you think about what kind of live formats you can have. And not to say that you couldn't put some pre-recorded formats together. Last year for our virtual conference, Standout and Sell Out, we had some pre-recorded content from some speakers. And then other components were live, such as networking and masterminding, and everyday's like action planning at the beginning of the day. But I would highly recommend that you make as much of your virtual event live as you possibly can. People want trust, they want to experience you, but they want more from their time. If they're committing time to showing up with you virtually, they want more out of that time. They want depth, they want relatability, they want to experience you and they want to be able to interact with you. They don't want to just sit and consume passively. And if you're an attendee of virtual events and you've had those bad experiences, my advice is like stop signing up for things that are passive, right? Look for the things that are live, even if they're a paid upgrade. Like, I would rather invest my money in a paid live virtual experience than spend my time registering for a free virtual experience that is something I can't even interact with, or I'm never gonna open the link. It's really about being discerning with your time as an attendee as much as it is a host. You know you're gonna get something so much more out of it if you block the time on your calendar, if you set the intention that you will go and be fully present so that you can get out of it what you want to get out of it. And if you listen to this and you're like, this is really interesting, I would love to know more and would love to experience a live virtual conference. Would love to invite you to stand out and sell out. This is the Power Tables virtual conference on all things visibility, marketing, personal branding, selling and sales, increasing your business growth. And it's August 11th to 13th. The link is below in the show notes. You can grab your free ticket. It is entirely live. In case you didn't pick up on where this was headed, it is entirely live. You won't see a slide deck in sight. Nothing is pre-recorded. We have panels, we have speakers doing live feedback sessions, like coaching, like audits. And I really want people who take the time to register and take the time to show up to get the absolute most out of it. I'm very excited. All of our speakers are incredible experts in what they do. It's going to be so great. People often tell me that our virtual conference is the best one they've ever attended. And this year, I think we even raised a bar by shifting from some pre recorded and some live elements to being fully live and fully immersive. So come join us at Standout and Sell Out. Grab your ticket, the link in the show notes, and we will see you soon.