Future FIRST Conferences & Non-Tournament Inspiration

[Siri]

This thread is to discuss proposals for making Championships (Worlds, Half-Worlds, or other events) more inspiring. In particular, it's sprung for the idea of "beefing up" the FIRST Conferences to make them into an destination in and of themselves.

Proposals here don't necessarily need to handle issues surrounding the 2017 Championship split, and they don't have to be for the Town Hall event at Worlds this year (2015).

Essentially, tournament-centric discussion aside, what else can we do to make these events as inspirational as possible? What inspires you about Worlds or other events, and what feels like a missed opportunity thus far?

Originally Posted by RoboMom

For many years I have volunteered to give conference sessions at the Championship with topics ranging from how to build community alliances to engaging parents to recruiting corporate volunteers. A couple of years ago there was a mentor who attended one of these sessions who shared with me that he obtained funding from his school system to attend the Championship BECAUSE of the conferences. Although these sessions have definitely gotten more polished over the years and expanded I continue to feel that "beefing" up the conferences held in conjunction with the Championship to be a destination in themselves has been a missed opportunity.