For the second year in a row, the TEDxNaperville conference will not take place this fall, putting the event's long-term future in question.
TEDxNaperville announced in a newsletter last week that it would not hold its signature annual conference this year. Changes in the leadership team behind the event, fewer sponsors and rising costs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic all contributed to the decision, Arthur Zaasz, founder, curator and executive director of TEDxNaperville, said Monday.
“It takes a lot of time and effort to put on an event,” he said.
Asked if the conference could be held again, Zaasz said: “I don't know.”
Launched in 2010, TEDxNaperville has over the years drawn hundreds of people to town to hear and interact with local luminaries, from astronauts and artists to doctors and musicians.
TEDxNaperville is a local version of events held around the world. Independently run and organized, TEDx events feature live speakers and recorded talks, as well as Zaz's installations. It operates under a royalty-free license from the nonprofit TED, and has numerous programs and initiatives whose primary mission is to discover and spread ideas. TED Talks have been viewed billions of times on YouTube.
According to the TEDx website, more than 13,000 TEDx events have been held in over 150 countries.
The changes to TEDxNaperville have been underway for a while now: In 2020, the annual conference was held virtually amid the pandemic. For the past two years, the event has returned to in-person, but on a smaller scale and in a more conversational format.
Nearly a year ago, TEDxNaperville issued something similar to last week's newsletter announcing that the 2023 conference would not take place. But at the time, the TEDxNaperville team instead previewed an expanded, reimagined version of the event.
Those plans never came to fruition. Ultimately, they just weren't feasible, Zsasz said.
“I really wanted to do a bigger event, but it takes time and effort,” he said.
For now, Zsasz said what TEDxNaperville needs is a fresh start.
“We have to rebuild from scratch because before COVID, things were going well. We were growing and growing, but then COVID hit us really hard, as you can imagine,” he said.
Before the pandemic, Zsasz was part of TEDxNaperville's 12-person leadership team, an all-volunteer operation that included 75 additional volunteers providing support on the day of the annual conference to ensure the event ran smoothly, but now Zsasz is the sole person behind TEDxNaperville.
“So right now I'm the only main team leader. We're looking at putting the team together again. … That's where we are. We're starting from scratch,” he said.
The team changes were made even more difficult by financial difficulties that arose during and after the pandemic. TEDxNaperville relies on sponsors to keep the program going. Before COVID-19, TEDxNaperville always had at least 20 to 30 small to large sponsors, Zersz said. But it has lost sponsors in recent years. Even after the pandemic, the costs of running an event like TEDxNaperville's fall conference remain high, Zersz said.
“Everything is more expensive now because of costs, inflation and scale. … Running an event is like running a big business. You can't survive on ticket sales alone,” Zaasz said. “You need outside financial support.”
Despite the challenges, Zersz stressed that TEDxNaperville isn't completely over. Even though they won't have a big talk series in the fall, they want to maintain the spirit of the initiative they started 15 years ago. For now, they plan to hold quarterly “salon” talk events, where 15 to 20 guests will hear from a guest speaker.
Salons will be offered in-person and virtually: In October, TEDxNaperville will host a virtual salon centered around artificial intelligence.
“There are so many great people in Naperville doing amazing things, and we need to make their voices heard,” Zersz said, “so TEDxNaperville will continue in some form.”
As for the future of TEDxNaperville's signature conference, Zersz said, “We don't want it to just disappear, but we need more people to join the leadership team and financial partnerships.”
“I miss the big events. … With the right people, the right groups and organizations, I would love to continue doing it, because it was so exciting to host those big events.”
tkenny@chicagotribune.com