Kitces Reveals Best Financial Advisor Conferences to Attend in 2026

Famed financial advisor Michael Kitces has released his updated list of the “Top Financial Advisor Conferences” for 2026, with a couple of relative newcomers grabbing top billing for what should be on the event calendar of retirement plan-focused advisors next year.

As someone who has been speaking at 50-70 conferences a year for 20 years, popular Nerd’s Eye View blogger Kitces notes he’s seen the good and bad of the wide range of industry events. Often asked for his own suggestions of what, really, are the industry’s “best” conferences to attend, he started to craft his own annual list of “best-in-class” top conferences for financial advisors back in 2012, and has updated it ever since.

The fact that “the content is available online” means modern financial advisor conferences can’t survive by simply having a reasonable lineup of speakers and content, Kitces writes about the 2026 list.

“Instead, similar to how financial advisors themselves are growing in the current environment, conferences are increasingly specializing, putting together a full agenda and experience to address a particular segment of advisors and the particular (knowledge or practice management) problems they face in their firms. Which increases the relevancy—and thus the ROI—of the conference for advisors who are a good fit,” Kitces said.

This year’s list includes events on advisor technology (and a new one focusing specifically on AI) to conferences on creating and marketing your personal brand, learning business development skills, or developing next-generation talent, to the top events for those who still use conferences to “up” their technical game in areas like tax planning, estate planning, and retirement planning.

“Plus a few events that are simply great, well-rounded experiences for those who want to enjoy the conference, the destination, the sessions they attend, and their fellow attendees,” Kitces said.

While the full list—available at this link—includes much more detail and several more “top” events in a variety of categories (listed briefly below), here are a couple of conferences retirement plan advisors may want to get on their 2026 calendar.

Best Retirement Planning Conference

The American College’s Horizons 2026, set for May 4-6 at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando, was named the “Best Retirement Planning Conference.”

After its successful debut event last year in San Diego, the second iteration of Horizons looks to build on that momentum by offering high-profile thought leaders sharing the latest research and retirement planning strategies and meaningful opportunities to network with other retirement-planning-centric advisors.

“Given the reality that ‘retirement’ is a ubiquitous topic at nearly any financial planning conference, Horizons has sought to differentiate itself by the depth and quality of its speaker lineup,” Kitces wrote. “The 2025 agenda was a veritable ‘who’s who’ of retirement planning experts, including Wade Pfau, Michael Finke, and David Blanchett, along with Ed Slott, Jeff Levine, Jamie Hopkins, and more (including yours-truly), and the American College seems committed to maintaining this differentiated positioning of top-end speaker quality.”

As far as who should attend, Kitces said Horizons is ideal for experienced financial planners who want to go deeper into retirement planning—particularly the decumulation stage of working with retirees.

Best Advisor Marketing Conference

While Sheri Fitts’ SWAY | LIVE made last year’s Kitces roundup as one of the best “Up-and-Coming” conferences, this year it was elevated to being named the “Best Advisor Marketing Conference.

SWAY Live 2026 is scheduled for August 2-4 at the Limelight Hotel in Boulder, Colo. It will be the fourth annual event.

“Hosted by advisor marketing expert Sheri Fitts, the focus of SWAY is on how to build and scale one’s personal brand to generate more scaling marketing results with the increasingly limited time that successful advisors have to market in the first place,” Kitces writes. “Scaling personal branding is all about keeping the founding advisor at the center of the firm’s marketing and growth strategy and simply driving more results from the same container of work.”

He goes on to note that the content at SWAY | LIVE is heavily focused on “finding your voice” to build your personal brand… and establishing yourself as a recognized person (e.g., an “influencer”) with your ideal clientele, within a community of other advisors who are all trying to build in the same way around themselves.

Kitces also points out that attendance is limited to the first 150 who register and warned those interested not to wait on getting registered.

“Seeing SWAY | LIVE listed as Best Advisor Marketing Conference means the world,” Fitts said of the honor. “Michael Kitces, thank you for recognizing the power of community, creativity, and purpose-driven branding in our profession.”

Additional events on the list:

• Best Overall Financial Planning Conference: FPA NorCal 2026, May 26-27, 2026 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

• Best Technology Conference: Technology Tools for Today (T3) Advisor Conference 2026, March 9-12, 2026, Hyatt Regency New Orleans.

• Best Tax Planning Conference: RTS Tax Summit 2026, Sept. 27-30, 2026, in Phoenix.

• Best Estate Planning Conference: Heckerling Institute 2026, Jan. 12-16, 2026, Orlando World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center, Orlando.

• Best Conference for New Financial Planners: FPA NexGen 2026, Aug. 18-20, 2026 in Dallas.

• Best Conference Experience: Future Proof Festival 2026, Sept. 14-17, 2026, Huntington Beach, Calif.

Check out the entire list of the “Top Financial Advisor Conferences” for 2026 here.

SEE ALSO:

• Retirement Events: Two National Shows Go Dark, But Horizons 2025 Emerges
• Marketing Insights Learned, Myths Busted at SWAY | LIVE
• Michael Kitces: Why Chat GPT Complements (Not Replaces) Advisors