While Black Friday and the holiday season may mark regular peaks for retail brands and the creative agencies that work with them, anyone more on the tech side of the mobile marketing industry tends to map their year around the large conventions that are scattered across the calendar.

MWC. Cannes Lions. Dmexco. Throughout the year, industry professionals in their tens of thousands flock to these large-scale events to network and glimpse the latest advances and achievements in marketing and technology. But are these year-defining gatherings actually worth the expense and effort involved?

At last year’s Cannes Lion, industry titan Sir Martin Sorrell was quoted saying that WPP was rethinking how much of a presence it would have at the event, and even whether it would attend at all, due to the growing scale and expense of the ‘Festival of Creativity’. Meanwhile, Facebook had a notably subdued presence at this year’s MWC, with Mark Zuckerberg not present to give a keynote speech on the opening night for the first time since 2014.

It’s not just the big firms either. The growing size and cost of these gatherings, along with the expectation to ‘put on a show’, means that smaller firms and startups are often priced out of participating or relegated to smaller satellite halls.

In order to dig into the industry’s feelings on these events, we’ve created an anonymous survey aimed at industry professionals, asking how they approach these events and whether the benefits outweigh the expense and effort. The survey will be open until 29 June, about a week after Cannes Lions ends, to give you plenty of time to experience the next big event on the calendar and weigh up your feelings.

All entries into the survey will be completely anonymous, so feel free to share your true opinions and be honest about how you really feel about these events. Are they a highlight in your calendar, a chance to let your hair down, or a necessary evil? Do they actually result in new business connections for you, or do you simply feel obligated to attend?

We’ll be sharing the results of the survey at a later date (all anonymised, of course) to let you know whether or not you’re alone in your opinions. Until then, click here to let your voice be heard.