#sfn2025 thoughts.
Personally, it was a great meeting --- I saw lots of old friends, met new ones, got great discussions at lots of posters. It's still the best neuroscience ocean to swim in. I came back with a full notebook of preprints to find and experiments to do and ideas to play with.
But ...
I don't know if #SfN is going to survive.
The vendors covered more than 80% of the floor space. The posters were a thin shell around a mass of vendors.
There were fewer posters (only through ZZ, and most of those rows were 18 posters/row as compared to the 60+ that were there in previous years). And many of those poster rows were incomplete.
This is the first year I saw empty boards (posters which were listed but weren't up). I don't know if people decided they couldn't come at the last minute, or if there were budget problems, or if they were NIH related and couldn't get permission while the govt was shutdown, or if they weren't allowed through the border. (I hope no one was detained. - What a statement about our world that I have to say that. 😳 )
A lot of people I know didn't come. My grad program and department used to close down for SFN. Everyone from every lab used to go. This year it was closer to 25% or less.
I think the attendance was 20k. I've heard break-even is 25k.
It's still my favorite meeting. But it felt different this year. It felt smaller. I'm just hopeful we can save it before it goes under.😢
There really is no other meeting that can fill its role. (Yes, I love smaller meetings as well, but #SfN is unique. It really is.)
