But the larger event could offer more information and networking opportunities for planners and expose a wider population of CPAs to the opportunities in financial planning, Eisenberg added.

“As long a this portion of the conference doesn’t get watered down … it could be a win” for attendees, he said.

The AICPA has 412,000 members, 87,000 of whom practice financial planning.

“You can make it as big or as small as you want to,” Todd Helton, director of meetings and conferences for the AICPA, said of the Engage conference.

PFP-related sessions will be grouped together, and conference badges will be color-coded so like-minded attendees can find each other, he said.

The PFP meeting is the largest event now, and Engage might bring the size up to a few thousand, Helton added.

The high level of content at the 30-year-old PFP event has drawn a growing audience in recent years.

Financial planner and blogger Michael Kitces picked the conference as the Best Advanced Educational Conference in his 2016 ranking of events. (Kitces is also speaking at the conference.)

That kind of word of mouth has helped attract more non-CPAs to the event, said Andrea Millar, associate director for the AICPA PFP division.

Anyone can attend the conference, she said. “We want to be inclusive.”