How to recognize a good conference?

I get the question regularly: how to recognize bad conferences in advance? Let me offer a few hints, and hopefully save you from painful experiences.

• Speakers <> sponsors
  Conferences want you to know who is supporting them, and who will be speaking. Compare these two lists, and if you see too many similarities, start wondering if some people bought their time on stage, and will therefore need to recoup their investment by pitching you their stuff. Things are not black or white (if you have Google as a sponsor you should not cancel that speech from Sergei and Larry), but that simple check is a strong indication on how the organizers plan to use your attention.
• Program packing (and rhythm)
  Seven speakers on a forty minutes panel? The organizers are speaker-dropping you! They put as many people on stage as possible to maximize the chances of hooking you up. Problem is, the speakers will not have time to debate, just barely to present several slides under stress. Not very interesting. As a rule of thumb, count 15 to 20 minutes per speaker on a panel, i.e. a three speakers in one hour is ok, four is really the limit, above that it’s a non sense.
  On the other side, giving a speaker a one hour slot is extremely dangerous unless he is Steve Jobs or Gunter Pauli. Half of the room will fall asleep with no change of pace after thirty minutes.
• Who is coming?
  Fundamental rule of conferences: a great event is not measured by who is speaking but by who is attending (speakers included of course). Can you see a participants list, and browse profiles? Do you see a bunch of wannabees or interesting people? Thing you will spend three to four days in the same room with these people, if you already have any sort of apprehension here is an answer: don’t go.
• Is the conference for or non-profit?
  Davos, Poptech, TED, Lift, all good conferences (sorry for the self-promotion, at the same time I won’t tell you Lift sucks ;) are organized by not-for profit organizations. Why? Because not for profit institutions tend to be more independent, and because conferences are always happening under extremely intense financial constraints. The money that is not used to pay dividends is invested in the event, and it shows.
• Look out for interactions
  It’s very simple: an interactive conference is (very likely) one that had to integrate a good audience. Can the audience propose talks? Is there a way to ask questions or interact with the speakers before and after their talk? Can you see who is attending, and contact the other participants in advance?
• Are speakers physically attending (and for how long?)
  At a good conference, you will have a chance to meet the speakers as they are interested by the event itself, and will therefore stay. One of the magic of Davos is that their location is so remote you have to stay there. There is (rarely) such thing as someone showing up, giving his talk, and packing to go somewhere else.
  Don’t forget to also check if the speakers will talk on location or through video chat (a common trick is to “forget” to announce this tiny detail). Video is nice, but you lose all the intangibles, the body language, the prestance, and really the technologies currently available don’t work unless you pay millions. And that also means less chances for a coffee and a nice discussion during the break.
• What is the balance of power between the organizers and the speakers?
  This one is trickier to spot, but it is extremely important. The organizer of a conference is a curator, and needs to ensure the program is coherent, that the speakers don’t repeat what has been said in a previous presentation, that the slides are not written in 6 points high font, etc. The organizer needs to be able to negotiate with the speaker, and ask for adaptations of the content to the event’s constraints. Can they do that?
  A first time conference will have a hard time, and you will probably see speakers not well prepared, and giving talks they have used all over the planet before showing up. Try to see if the situation is more balanced, if the conference is established and respected enough that it can work with (and not “for”, nor “against”) the speakers to deliver good content.
• Price is misleading
  There is no correlation between the quality of a conference and it’s price. Some cheap conferences are extremely interesting, while very expensive ones can suck. As nothing is free in our world, a conference that won’t charge you at the door will have to find value somewhere. Will the organizers pitch themselves or their company? Are sponsors giving lengthy talks? Are the speakers a group of friends looking for media attention? Or is it really an act of love? The latter is quite rare, although not impossible. So look carefully at the program before you sign up.
  Paid conferences should be more independent and free of pitches, because by paying your ticket you relieve the organizers of some pressure, making them less dependent on sponsors. Check the program and the sponsors list, look at the website, try to feel if the focus is the conference brand (bad) or the content (good).
• Logistics are an indicator (but not everything)
  Logistics are again very misleading. You can be in a very nice conference center and only use one of the second tier room (especially frequent with hotel venues). At the same time, you will forget you had a crappy sandwich if Bill Gates shared it with you. Conferences are an experience, and many things influence the quality of the time you will spend. Four years down the road you remember who you met, not the menu of the lunch, so don’t base too much of your assessment on the logistics.

What is your experience? Can you share your tips on how to recognize a good conference?