Each year, the AFA team engages in a deep dive on the AFA Annual Meeting pattern that evaluates to what extent the Annual Meeting is providing a meaningful return on investment for general attendees and educational partners. This deep dive is driven primarily by the following data points:

• Feedback themes from recent Annual Meeting attendee post-event evaluations; 
• Feedback discussions with the Annual Meeting Planning Team; 
• Anecdotal feedback themes from attendees, volunteers, and educational partners; 
• Overall cost to execute the Annual Meeting over time. 

AFA is committed to continuing to innovate around our most intensive and impactful professional development program, the AFA Annual Meeting. This means making schedule changes that maximize opportunities for attendees to engage with Annual Meeting priorities, all under a responsible business model. 

The 2025 Annual Meeting is bringing about the following Annual Meeting innovations:

For the 2025 Annual Meeting, AFA will move the annual business meeting to a virtual format scheduled in the weeks prior to the Annual Meeting. This will allow AFA to increase the amount of educational sessions both accepted and offered at the Annual Meeting, providing greater return on investment for attendees.

Moving forward, the AFA Awards Presentation and Industry Celebration Banquet will be able to be selected as a ticketed item when registering for the Annual Meeting, and will be considered separate from the base registration rate. This allows AFA to be more responsible with, and expand, its food and beverage offering at the Annual Meeting, and reallocate our food & beverage spend in a way that better impacts professional development offerings at the conference.

Moving forward, Annual Meeting attendees may experience slight shifts in the traditional date patterns of the Annual Meeting. The 2025 Annual Meeting will kick off on Monday, December 8 and conclude on Thursday, December 11. When determining program dates, AFA considers a variety of factors including hotel availability and anticipated room rate pricing for attendees. While AFA has a history of hosting the Annual Meeting over a traditional weekend date (Saturday or Sunday), flexibility in the Annual Meeting program dates allow AFA to be a responsible steward of resources, and often allow AFA to take greater advantage of more affordable weekday rates.