The Westin Grand Central is a deliberate choice of venue. Midtown Manhattan, steps from commuter rail, conference rooms arranged for efficient transit between presentations. Needham & Company has been running this event long enough to know that institutional investors do not come to New York in May for the scenery. They come to compress time—to see twelve companies in two days instead of twelve separate roadshows across three months. The 21st Annual Needham Technology, Media & Consumer Conference, running May 12–14, 2026, is an exercise in structured access.

The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha has functioned for decades as something between a shareholder event and a secular pilgrimage. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger — and then Buffett alone after Munger’s death in 2023 — provided the gravitational pull. The event drew tens of thousands to Nebraska each May to hear Buffett speak about investing, business, and occasionally the state of the world, in a format that was unreplicable because it depended entirely on a specific person being alive and willing to hold court.