I’ve been organizing fintech conferences for more than 13 years. Even after we sold our events business, I continue to dedicate my career to this space because I love it.
I’ve watched fintech events grow from intimate gatherings of a few hundred people into week-long ecosystems that transform entire cities. And after all that time, I’ve come to the conclusion that the conference business needs to change. Because the conference itself is often not the main event.
The Conference as Destination
The biggest fintech events stopped being “just a conference” years ago. Money20/20 Las Vegas, Fintech Meetup, Singapore Fintech Festival – these have evolved into destinations. They create a temporary center of gravity for the entire fintech industry, pulling thousands of people into one city during a compressed window of time. The official programming is almost secondary to the density of opportunity that surrounds it.
I spoke recently with Alex Pelin, founder of The Financial Club, who, like me, has spent years studying the evolution of the conference model. He put it plainly: the best conferences have become destinations, and “a lot of this value is actually driven outside of the conference walls.” He pointed to Token2049, the massive crypto event, in Singapore as the most extreme example, a conference that now generates roughly a thousand side events in a single week. The side event ecosystem has become bigger than the main event itself.
That’s not an anomaly. It’s the direction everything is heading.
Content Is Not King
Here’s another uncomfortable truth: the content at most fintech conferences is not that important. Even though I have spent much of my time over the last 13 years putting fintech agendas together, I am under no illusions that the sessions are a big draw anymore.
Back in 2014 or 2015, that was not the case. I remember when Larry Summers did a keynote at LendIt in 2015 in New York, we had 2,500 people at the event with 1,800 seats in the main room and it was standing room only. That would not happen today. As an industry matures, and encyclopedias of content are being produced every week, the official agenda is no longer the main attraction.
People aren’t flying to Vegas or Singapore for the content, they’re going because that’s where the people are, the customers, investors, partners, and peers they need to see.
Alex was characteristically direct about this. “No one cares about the content,” he told me. The sessions that actually work, he argued, share one thing in common: a small, engaged group of people who are specifically interested in both the topic and the speakers, and who get to participate rather than just observe. Everything else is largely theater, good for LinkedIn photos, useful for PR, but not what drives the real ROI of attending.
I’ve seen enough conferences to know he’s right. I was at Money20/20 last year and had more productive conversations in the hallways, at dinners, and over coffee than I did inside the event (and I had a ticket). That’s not a knock on the organizers, Money20/20 continues to do a great job, and is the largest fintech event in the country. It’s just how people attend these days.
The Information Gap
So if the real value is in the connections happening across the entire ecosystem, not just inside the venue, why is it still so hard to coordinate?
Before I go any further, I do want to acknowledge that Fintech Meetup has done a great job in facilitating direct connections with their meetings program. It is by far the largest and the best in the industry and is worth the price of admission. But not everyone who will be in Vegas at the end of March will have a ticket to their event.
This gets to the core of the problem. How can we get a complete picture of everyone who will be in Vegas for the event, with or without a ticket.
A Better Approach Is Coming
There is a better way. Alex Pelin and The Financial Club have been quietly building what they call Conference Hubs, a planning layer for major conferences that shows who’s in town, what side events are happening, what the official agenda looks like, and where conversations are forming before the week begins. They’ve just announced a pilot with Fintech Meetup, integrating the Hub as a planning layer for the week surrounding the event, which gives you a sense of how seriously the industry is taking this. If you’re heading to Vegas, make sure you tag yourself as going at app.financialclub.com/hubs.
Network effects like this take time to build. The more people who opt in, the more valuable it becomes for everyone. This is the right idea at the right time. I am so impressed by what Alex is building that I am joining him to help grow this new initiative.
What You Can Do Now
Fintech Meetup is coming up fast. I will be there as will most of the industry. I encourage you to be active and take part in the meetings program but whether you have a ticket or not, be sure to signal your intent on the Hub.
The conference model is changing faster than most people realize. The conferences themselves aren’t disappearing. What’s changing is where the value lives. The future of fintech events isn’t just inside the conference hall, it’s across the entire week surrounding it. The people who learn how to navigate that ecosystem will be the ones who get the most out of every event they attend.
