Community events can be about many things. Ours (Community Days, SharePoint Saturdays, M365 days, etc.) are about education, information sharing, and networking. They’re about connections.
Connecting sponsors with attendees, their organizations, customer prospects, potential hires, and peers.
Connecting attendees with each other, with speakers, with potential employers, and with the broader community.
Connecting speakers with their audience.
Connecting product owners with current customers and prospects.
If all goes well, people walk away from the day with LinkedIn connections, X (Twitter) followers, appointments for coffee and meetups, leads to follow-up with, and more.
Sure, education and awareness are a big part too and not to undersell that part, but it is a point in time data point. Hopefully folks walk away knowing how to do something they didn’t before and learn a few keywords or directions to look to dig deeper but the connections are even more important in that they have someone to call with questions, now or in the future.
Connections. Don’t take them for granted. Make the most of your time together. Say hello to the person sitting next to you in a session. Sit with someone new at lunch. Follow up with the person in a session that asked a question for something relevant to you. Introduce yourself to a speaker. Talk to the sponsors. Give the event producers your feedback or let them know if you’ve got a topic you’d love to talk about in the future.