Lip sync conferences.

Abstract

There is always a frisson of anticipation when heading to a conference. It is an opportunity to renew acquaintances, to share your latest results—or at least those that you think are safe to talk about—and to find out what progress has been made on recent exciting work. Increasingly, however, the reality is that conferences are more like Rock concerts where the main act is clearly lip‐syncing their old hits and you end up wondering whether the expense has been worth the experience. It turns out that the oldies but goldies of the circuit were put on the programme because of their earlier “hits”. Three quarter of their presentation is given to well‐rehearsed back numbers, and the new material has already been published and is incremental. But the organising committee had to put together the programme more than a year in advance, and some senior …