Wind Energy Conferences: Are They Worth it?

Rosemary just got back from a conference and, like many of us
recently, feels discouraged. Attendees and meetings were
insightful, but the presentations and panels lacked impact. Allen
has often felt the same. The two unpack their issues with recent
wind energy conferences and discuss possible solutions to make them
more valuable. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email
update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored
by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather
Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the
show
on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit
Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes'
YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting -
https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy
Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my great co host,
Rosemary Barnes, who is just back, fresh back from the Australia
Wind Energy 2024 Conference in, of all places, Melbourne,
Australia. And Rosemary and I were just talking offline about some
of the proceedings and the events that happened in Melbourne, and I
thought it'd be a good discussion to get out into the greater
uptime audience. Rosemary, first off, welcome back, and can you
give us just a couple of just top level what was going on in
Melbourne australia at this wind energy conference? Rosemary
Barnes: Yeah, it was actually really focused on offshore wind this
time. We I would say two thirds, three quarters, maybe more of the
sessions were like explicitly about offshore wind, it seemed, and
when it wasn't explicitly about it, then people were trying to
shoehorn it in, which. On the one hand, it makes sense because
that's the, next big exciting thing coming. But on the other hand,
we have literally zero offshore wind currently, and we have many
things that could be improved with our current onshore wind
rollout. I did think that there, it was a bit unbalanced in that
way. This conference, it was amazing in terms of everybody shows up
to it. I, I think I was just back to back meetings the entire time
really targeted at all the people that I, Wanted to talk to for,
the various projects that I've got going on. So in that sense, it
was incredibly successful and and had a great time. But yeah, when
I did find the time to step into some of the presentations, which
is what you pay for after all, it's 1, 500 for two days. And yeah,
the sessions that I went to, they're just getting. Worse and worse.
It feels less and less like anybody cares what the experience is
like for the attendees, what they might be hoping to get out of it.
And it's just purely about extracting money from everybody, extract
money from the exhibitors, extract money from the sponsors, extract
money from the keynote speakers. People don't realize that the
keynote speakers are all, they're all paying to stand up there and
speak to you like, like a lot. Yeah, pretty significant amount. And
some of them are good, but you don't know ahead of time. And for
the most part, people pay their 10 grand or whatever it is and
stand up there and give you a sales pitch. And that's not valuable
to the majority of the audience. Yeah, another complaint just on
the panel discussions. The panels are just way too big. You have a
panel with 10 different people on it you spend half of the session
just introducing everybody and then they've got to give their
little pitch about their company because they've got to get
something out of it. And then, yeah, there's not, there's too many
people to have an actual discussion, usually not many, or maybe not
any questions from the audience, certainly not addressed in a
meaningful way. And you have sessions like a session on, it sounds
like it should be interesting session on supply chain challenges.
That's a huge challenge for for wind everywhere in the world at the
moment including Australia. And. You have a, an hour long session
and they mentioned the word supply chain, but it's just Oh yeah,
and obviously supply chain is an issue. And then, move on to talk
about something else. Allen Hall: And let me ask you about that.
Let me ask you about that because I've been to a number of
conferences this year and I don't want to name the ones I've been
to specifically, but the attendance in the discussions was quite
small, typically, unless it was a technical subject, something that
people were having problems with out in the field. Thanks A couple
I remember from this year or last year was like concrete
foundations and problems with concrete foundations on turbines,
right? That's a big issue. Another one was lightning damage or
qualification of damage to blades and trying to quantify what's cat
one versus cat five. Trade and industry standard, that was well
attended. But some of these that are policy driven or politically
driven discussions are just not well attended. Is that the same
thing you're seeing on Australia? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It's
actually interesting that you should mention foundations because
that was the sole good keynote that I saw was a guy from total
ground engineering who has a, his He presented some very compelling
information about why the current standards for foundations are
becoming less and less appropriate as the turbines get bigger and
presented some innovative solutions towards that. So that was a
win. That was probably the sole interesting thing that I actually
learned from sitting in the audience. Yeah, I and you're right that
they're not very well attended because probably everyone is
thinking the same thing as me, that this is not the point of the
conference anymore. The point is that people that you meet and
yeah, early, like a few years ago when I moved back to Australia
and I found myself with no network in Australian wind industry. So
I went to the conferences and, I needed to Randomly chat to people
and bump into people and pull people aside after a presentation to
talk to them. But this time, every single conversation I had gotten
in touch with them. Either I already knew them or I had planned out
ahead of time and got in touch on LinkedIn. So yeah, I'd say that
the last bit of value that's left at these, the conferences that
way that they're being run is the app that they have where you can
actually, search by company, say who's going to be there from the
different companies and then. You figure out who you want to talk
to and send them a message. They also had a semi cool feature where
you can send a meeting request. And if you put your availability in
the calendar, then it will hook you up and you go into this room.
It had a real speed dating vibe about it. Everyone's just like
awkwardly looking around for who they're supposed to be meeting.
And then, yeah which, yeah, it was funny but that's actually
useful. But yeah, it's just, it is becoming pretty hard to justify
the price and. I don't know. It's been years since I went to a
European conference. So maybe they're following this same same
business model as the Australian and American ones now. But the
last one I went to in Europe, it was really about the information,
that they had people presenting and they would ask people to talk
because they thought they had something interesting to say, not
because they wanted them to pay a lot of money. To get up there and
talk. Yeah, so I just really think that they've got to rein it in a
little bit. Get at least keep your panels of a moderate size. I
know you've got to let every sponsor have a spot on the panel, keep
it at a size that where it's possible to have some sort of
interesting communication happening. Get a moderator that actually
knows how to moderate with the audience in mind, okay. Given the
session title and the participants, what are the audience going to
want out of this? And then, keep people on track. Don't allow it to
become just like a a sales broacher of them, verbal sales broacher
for their company talk about the things that people are hoping to
learn about otherwise, are people going to keep on going? Maybe
it's irrelevant, but I would have thought that exhibitors are only
paying because. The number of people that come through the door and
the same with the sponsors of the conference. They're not going to
want to sponsor. Yeah. Like 10, 000 keynote that has three people
in the audience attending. I could, you know what? They could
better spend that money on sponsoring social media content instead
and get a much wider view. Yeah. Viewership, listenership. Allen
Hall: Let me ask you why you think this is, because I have a couple
of thoughts and I'm going to throw some at the wall here and you
tell me what sticks. First, is that they choose conference venues
that are super exclusive slash expensive, like overly done. And so
those conference places cost an enormous sum of money to book, to
hold, and to then to make some money on as a conference exhibitor
or a conference holder. The economics are not in your favor when
you do that. Used to be when we held conferences, I've been to a
lot of Holiday Inn, Ramada kind of conferences in the United
States, a lot less expensive, more attendance just because the
entrance fee went down, then the hotel wasn't as expensive. I think
cause you're, you mentioned the 1, 500 to attend. There's a reason
why that is, I, was it one of those fancy Melbourne hotels or
conference centers? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. It's in the
Melbourne convention center, which they all, they always are that.
Yeah. They're all there. And then. It's fine. It's nice, but it's
also expensive. You want to stay close. So then your accommodation
is expensive too. Allen Hall: See that, that, that doesn't help the
attendees.