This week I'm in Miami — hosting at The Drum's inaugural Commerce Media Forum, delivering a keynote, then rolling straight into Possible, and catching a 6 AM flight back to Atlanta on Wednesday for a Loyalty Connect panel with folks from Home Depot, Marriott, and Sky Zone. Three events by Wednesday! I was feeling a little overwhelmed recording my podcast on Friday, and that's what prompted me to check, because based on my LinkedIn feed, it seems like everyone is constantly running around to events.
A couple of weeks ago I ran a LinkedIn poll asking people in commerce media how many in-person industry events they're attending in H1 2026. 145 people voted. The number that jumped out wasn't the people doing three-to-five, or the 9% of road warriors doing six or more. It was this: 28% of respondents aren't attending a single in-person event in the first half of 2026.
That's more than one in four people in an industry that runs on relationships and face time — opting out entirely.
The plurality — 34% — are attending one or two. Another 30% are doing three to five. So the picture isn't wholesale retreat. But it's not the packed-calendar norm that LinkedIn would have you believe, either. Most people are being selective, and a sizeable chunk have decided the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
So what's going on?
The easy answer is budget pressure. A WSJ piece this week argued that employees should lobby their bosses harder for business travel, citing the career advantages of in-person visibility. A Booking.com for Business study made a similar case, reporting that face-to-face meetings are 34 times more effective than virtual communication and that 40% of deals close through in-person sales meetings. The data on travel's value isn't really in dispute — most people in our industry would agree that the corridor conversations, the dinners, the chance encounters on the show floor are where real business happens.
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But knowing travel is valuable doesn't solve the calendar problem. Commerce media now has its own sprawling circuit — Shoptalk, NRF, Possible, CommerceNext, the IAB events, P2PI, plus a growing roster of invite-only summits and retailer-hosted events. Each one has a legitimate case for attendance. And that's the tension — it's not that any single event isn't worth going to. It's that there are too many worth-going-to events for any one person to attend.
I suspect what's really driving the 28% isn't anti-travel sentiment. It's decision fatigue dressed up as opting out. When the calendar is this crowded, "none" becomes easier than trying to pick the right two or three.
The industry talks about this as FOMO. But there's also JOMO — the joy of missing out. Some weeks, honestly, the JOMO wins.
Events are not losing their value. But the market for attention is saturated, and people are drawing lines. The events pulling people off their couches and onto planes are the ones offering something they can't get from a webinar replay — whether that's an unscripted debate, a closed-door dinner, or just the right density of the right people in one room.
For the rest of us, being intentional about which events earn your time isn't disengagement. It might be the only sane response to a calendar that's gotten out of hand.
On That Note.... Where to Find Me Next!
A busy few months on the road — here's what's coming up next.
🎤 Digital Shelf Summit — May 5, Atlanta
I'm taking the mainstage at the Digital Shelf Summit for a debate where I'll be going head-to-head with Rob Gonzalez (Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, Salsify) and Andrew Lipsman (Independent Analyst, Media, Ads + Commerce) on Agentic Day. Should be a fun one.
🎤 Signal to Scale 2026 by Xnurta — May 19, Chicago
I'm keynoting at Signal to Scale, Xnurta's invite-only executive summit for retail media and commerce leaders. My session — The Agentic Reset: How AI-Enabled Shopping Journeys Affect the Economics of Commerce Media — kicks off the main program at 9:30am. The rest of the day features panels on full-funnel retail media, AI adoption, measurement, and a session from Amazon on agentic AI strategy. Attendance is by invitation only. Request your spot here.
💻 How Kroger Precision Marketing Is Plugging Into National Brand Budgets — May 7 (Virtual)
Join me for a LinkedIn Live on May 7th with Christine Foster (Kroger Precision Marketing) and Jon Flugstad (MetaRouter) on one of the more interesting retail media developments right now — KPM bringing SKU-level sales attribution to YouTube. We'll cover what the integration reveals about the gap between where retail media is and where brand marketers need it to be, including the measurement breakthrough, the privacy-safe infrastructure underneath it, and why reducing friction may matter more than adding features. Live Q&A. Presented by MetaRouter. 🔗 Register / join here
