How scaleable are conferences? (How could we scale up Manifest?)
What restricts conference growth?
Size of venues?
Audience and marketing ability?
Distance people are willing to travel?
How could we run conferences much more cheaply?
Planning time is expensive; also reputationally expensive.
How much time needs to elapse between conferences? (if we ran Manifest every 2 months, would people come?)
Could imagine running it in other locations ala EA Global… How to franchise a conference?
Why do virtual conferences suck?
How profitable can a conference be?
What are the most successful conferences and festivals?
Burning Man?
Anime Expo?
YC Demo Day?
WEF at Davos?
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour?
What is success here (total value added? value captured? number attendees?)
What’s different between:
Party
Meetup
Conference
Festival
Convention
Why are conferences kind of uncool now?
Thesis: Going to a conference feels a bit like “make work”. The coolest people ship code instead of socializing.
How many conferences can exist in an ecosystem? What’s the saturation point?
Why do people enjoy going to conferences?
Meeting other people
Seeing the exhibitions
Listening to talks
Experiencing the crowds
Other lists
Things conferences are kind of like:
Snowball/avalanche: Once you have a few good speakers lined up, more people are excited to come.
Markets in people: where we match up supply of speakers to demand of attendees
There’s a magical quality to having lots of people; things that cater to people will spring up to serve them. (like cafes popping up in a dense city)
Conferences that have helped me a lot:
Hereticon (pitching Manifold, meeting Paul Gu & Andy)