Outsource conference research: who finds the right stages for you?

A speaker agency takes over conference research by evaluating open calls on an ongoing basis and selecting the right stages for you. At Stage Starter the collaboration starts from €990 net a month, and research is one of the tasks we handle for you. A call for papers is the public invitation a conference uses to collect talk proposals, and in our database of around 22,700 conferences around 1,500 of these are open at any time. This article shows why research is hard to do on the side and how you can tell whether an agency does it seriously.

Can I outsource conference research?

Yes, conference research can be fully outsourced to a speaker agency, ideally together with abstracts and submission. Conference research means more than a list of events. It is the ongoing work of finding professional conferences where your future audience sits and where a talk through an open call is possible. A professional conference is an event where people from one industry listen to talks about their field, whereas at a trade fair exhibitors and their stands are the focus.

Every call has a deadline, after which the only route left at that conference for the year is approaching the organisers directly. Research therefore never delivers a finished result: it starts again whenever calls appear and continues for as long as you want talks. How the stage fits into the path to becoming a speaker as a whole is described in the guide to becoming a speaker.

How many conferences have an open call for papers?

Our database holds around 22,700 conferences, and around 1,500 of them have an open call for papers. The number of open calls stays similar across the year, but the calls themselves change constantly: every week some close and new ones open. Many conferences only publish their call a few weeks to months before the deadline, so only a small share of later calls is ever in the database far in advance.

How far the research reaches is shown by our analysis of 2,415 conferences that publicly advertise speaking slots for 2026. The USA leads with 391 conferences, followed by India with 120, Italy with 108 and the UK with 90, with Germany at 88 and Spain at 78. If you are looking for clients in the German-speaking world, you will find a large share of your stages in your own country and a further share at international conferences whose audience fits your offer.

Why does conference research have to start early?

Research has to start early because deadlines fall shortly before the conference and calls are only open for a few weeks. In our analysis the time between submission deadline and conference start is 50 days at the median and 65 days on average. If you want to reach a conference in October, you usually have to have submitted in the summer, and the call for it appears earlier still.

The conferences themselves are spread unevenly across the year. Most conferences in our analysis take place in October (346), November (307) and September (257), the fewest in July (92) and January (108). The deadlines for the strong autumn season therefore fall in the summer, when many self-employed people are on holiday. If you do not search continuously, you miss exactly these calls, and every missed deadline costs you a conference for a whole year. The patterns professional conferences show over the year are described in When is conference season in Germany?.

What a good selection takes into account

Around 1,500 open calls become a selection once four criteria have been checked. Your future audience has to be at the conference, and your topic has to fit the programme of earlier editions. Region and language have to suit you, and the date has to fit your calendar. Each of these criteria requires reading, because the programmes of previous years have to be reviewed, as do the language of the sessions and the requirements of the submission form.

For a single field, only part of the open calls remains, and that part changes with every new call. A list compiled once is therefore out of date as soon as the first deadlines pass.

What the selection is worth is shown by our submissions for clients. We reach up to 19 per cent acceptances per conference (83 acceptances from 433 decided conferences), while at this volume of submissions the market norm is 5 per cent at most. Per abstract, the short description of a talk that the programme committee reads, acceptance was around 7 per cent. The programme committee is the group that decides on submissions at a conference.

What the agency takes on and what stays with you

Stage Starter takes on this work for you: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit it. Research is part of the full service of a speaker agency for experts. We develop the talk and abstracts, research the conferences, submit in your name and follow up until we accompany you to the stage. Where a deadline has already passed, we write to the programme leads directly. You provide your expertise and approve the talk and abstracts once before the start, and you hold the conversations after the talk yourself.

The order has a reason: only once the talk topic is shaped can you judge which conference fits it, and only with finished abstracts can you meet a short deadline. An agency that only sends you a list of conferences hands the work back to you as soon as the list is done. The full range of agency services is covered in What does a speaker agency do for experts?.

A virtual assistant can note deadlines and fill in forms. Whether a conference fits your topic and what the abstract for this programme committee has to look like, however, requires knowledge of how conferences work. Both routes are compared in Speaker agency or virtual assistant for submissions?.

Three routes to the right stages compared

There are three routes to the right stages, and they differ in who does the work and what it costs.

Pay to speak means an organiser gives out speaking slots for money, usually as a sponsorship package, and that quickly costs 10,000 euros or more for a single slot. Twelve months with Stage Starter cost from €11,880 net and include all the work from research to support on stage. When a paid slot is still an option is explained in Sponsored talks and pay to speak.

Researching yourself costs no agency fee, but it costs ongoing working time that you should value at your day rate. At an assumed day rate of €1,000, a monthly fee from €990 net equals roughly one working day, and in return research and submission are taken off your hands for the whole month.

How to recognise good research

You recognise good research by three things an agency can show you before the start. A serious agency names the database it searches and says how many conferences in it have open calls. For every conference it proposes, it can justify audience and topic, and it shows you upcoming deadlines together with the state of preparation.

The programme committee decides on every acceptance. The agency determines the selection of conferences, the volume of submissions and the quality of the abstracts, and those three are what you measure its work by.