The meat and drink of the events industry is a compliant audience
“Events” is an industry and the attendance of a small group of people is fought over.
The events tend to be free and depend on the payment by sponsors to speak and promote in a hall. So Chatham House becomes a protective mechanism, ensuring that nothing controversial gets beyond the four walls of the event. In practice, very little “controversial” is said at all!
It’s left to those rare moments of indiscretion , for us to have insights into what’s really going on- the one I found by accident yesterday shows how people can be caught by cameras!
It would seem that linked in is patrolled by promoters of this kind of thing. First there is a kind of fluffer like this Carlos, who I suspect is a bot reposting #conferenceinsights.
I took this bot seriously – but hang about, I was having a bit of fun in my post, having fun is not on the agenda of the conference organisations, winning audience share is – note the diary organisers being promoted to make sure you can prioritise which event you go to. Bobby Riddaway went to four events on Thursday of last week.
This diary organiser shows 11 events to go to that Thursday (19th Nov 2025)
It is clearly competitive on a late November Thursday so what we get is group of speakers who are acceptable and a group who aren’t.
If you want to hear those who are looking to speak beyond the key-wins (End-game, use of private markets, tax-mitigation etc) then you need to go to the Old Cocke in Fleet Street last Tuesday or in the morning the Pension PlayPen. Here people are unconstrained by pleasing sponsors but able to share learned experience.
One of the reasons I went to SG pensions event was that it had genuine free-speakers alongside the sponsors.
One way of looking at all this is that we are in a thriving industry, another that we are over-indulged. My grumpy friends think the latter and will be on me for going to these things – but there are very few ways to meet people in person – COVID did for that!
What you don’t get (very often) at events is someone speaking their mind at a conference . I will not tell you where Terry Pullinger was speaking where he was recorded but this reminds me we can both laugh and cry with a great speaker.
Actually, it’s time that the audiences took these events back from the event industry and made events fun and inspirational, there is an excellent section of their latest podcast when Nico Aspinall complains how little that goes on in these free events is worth watching. His criticism extends to questions from the floor.
It’s the one on November 21st and it’s an example of people talking outside the complicit behaviour of audiences and sponsors.
We are at peak time for events. Next week is much the same and then we are into Christmas party season. I’m amazed that anybody has any time for work – after conference and awards events.
What is worse is that to get the best “bang for buck” for the sponsors these events tend to be in London (or residential). This leaves out the “pension professional” in Manchester, Leeds, or other locations, and possibly with corporate restrictions on carbon intensive travel or in accepting hospitality.
While the growth in webinars may meet the sponsors’ goal to soft sell their product, they do not usually provide a vehicle for non mediated interactions between the attendees, Pensions Playpen excepted.
In Manchester there are some significant alternatives where the hospitality is restricted to the provision of a meeting room and some refreshments. I personally get great benefit from attending the meetings of the Northwest Sustainability Forum and Pensions UK Manchester Branch (whose meeting next week goes under the banner “The Raven over Manchester’s Fog” – perhaps something to do with life expectancy?). The list of inventions originating in Manchester extends to pensions as well (Shared Ambition DB and CDC).
Other cities are also available!
SG Publishing used to include some break out or pre- and post-webinar time for non mediated interactions (although the ones I recall included discussion of Bob Dylan or where-am-I-today background picture quizzes, rather than much serious discussion).
But SG have returned to in-person events, I read, so my nostalgia for lockdown is misplaced.
My favourite in-person events included some artistic disruption – in The Hague, the VvB employed resting actors to pretend to be hecklers, either disguised as cleaners or as flat-capped pensioners, while in Edinburgh Ray Martin, I think, got some resting actors to invade an NAPF regional event in search of the afternoon tea dance they pretended to be expecting; the actors asked unsuspecting delegates up for a waltz …