Advisors will likely have to wait at least another year for the large, marquee, in-person industry conferences to return—if they come back at all.

Last week, Schwab announced via e-mail that its annual IMPACT conference would be hosted virtually this year.

“Schwab had high hopes of bringing Schwab IMPACT 2021 back in person, but with an event that involves more than 5,000 people and the uncertainty of what conditions will be like in the fall, the decision was reached that IMPACT 2021 will be a two-day predominantly virtual event on Oct. 19-20,” said the announcement.

Virtual attendance to Schwab IMPACT will be free of registration fees, according to the announcement.

The announcement comes as several RIA platforms, hoping to resume their large in-person conferences in 2021, have thrown in the towel and gone virtual amid a persistent Covid-19 pandemic. 

With TD Ameritrade now under Schwab’s umbrella, there was no TD Ameritrade National LINC conference in 2021.

However, BNY Mellon | Pershing will proceed with its own all-virtual INSITE conference June 8-10. Each day will present a different focus. Day one, on June 8, will be dedicated to leadership; day two, on June 9, will focus on innovation; and day three, on June 10, will be devoted to inspiration and motivation. Each day will feature live “main stage moments,” and the conference will also include 20 on-demand sessions that can be viewed for up to 30 days after taking place.

Financial Advisor, The Money Management Institute and The Execution Project will hold an all-virtual event called Next Chapter dedicated to the changing nature of retirement on June 16-17.

The Investment and Wealth Institute’s ACE Academy will become an all-virtual, multisession conference April 26-27.

The Morningstar Investment Conference, slated for Sept. 22-24, is currently planned as a hybrid event with sessions viewable online and limited in-person attendance at Chicago’s McCormick Place. AICPA appears to be taking the same approach to its upcoming ENGAGE conference on June 7-10 in Las Vegas.

Several smaller conferences are adopting virtual formats, both live and on-demand. NAPFA’s upcoming spring national conference will take place May 5-7 in a virtual format, as will the May 12-13 DeVoe G2 Forum and the May 17-20 Broadridge Fi360 Solutions Conference.

Later in the year, several large in-person conferences are still slated to occur, including the Technology Tools for Today (T3) fintech conference from Sept. 27-Oct. 1 in Denton, Texas, the Carson Group’s Excell conference from Oct. 12-14 in Las Vegas and the Inside ETFs from Sept. 27 to 29 in Hollywood, Fla.

As of right now, LPL’s Focus 2021 conference, slated for Denver in July, and the ACP Annual Conference, slated for Atlanta in November, are still on as in-person events, as are several smaller technology-themed conferences from firms like Orion, Riskalyze and Inside Information.