Funnel Marketing Agency Conferences 2026 to 2027: The One Real Event Just Ended, and What Wins More Clients Than a Badge

You typed funnel marketing agency conference into a search box, hoping for a real calendar. Six months ago the answer would have been Funnel Hacking Live, roughly a thousand dollars a seat and sold out most years. In March 2026 Russell Brunson retired it. The farewell show this September sold out at 1,042 seats, general tickets started at $200, and nobody has announced a 2027 edition.

Genius Network runs in Scottsdale in November, but a seat starts at $10,000 and the room is already sold out. Hero Conf, built for paid traffic and PPC people, is the only event with a real date in the second half of 2027. Build a Better Agency Summit teaches agency ops, not funnel work. Traffic and Conversion Summit, once the closest thing to a real answer, is gone.

Agency owners hunting for clients online still get pointed at Funnel Hacking Live as a dedicated event built for exactly this crowd, months after the brand ended. This guide gives you what is actually still on the calendar through December 2027, what a seat costs now, and what wins more funnel clients than any badge.

What this guide covers, in order:

• The whole calendar in one paragraph
• Why Funnel Hacking Live ended
• What each badge actually costs
• Which room fits your shop
• Referrals beat any badge
• If you go, do this

The whole funnel marketing calendar for 2026 and 2027 fits in one paragraph

A dedicated funnel marketing conference still does not exist. Two events on this list have a real date through the end of 2027, and one of the two already sold out and retired itself. The timeline and table below hold everything worth checking, plus the ones an old list would send you to by mistake.

Funnel Hacking Live sold out its farewell show on September 16, 2026. The only way in now is the waitlist. We cover the whole story, and why it matters for 2027, in the next section.

Hero Conf is the one real date in the back half of 2027. It runs September 9 to 10, 2027, in San Diego, co-located with brightonSEO, and a two day pass starts at $500. It is built for the paid traffic side of this work, not for funnel building itself.

Genius Network and Build a Better Agency Summit are on the calendar, but neither is built for funnel work. One is a $10,000-and-up mastermind for high ticket entrepreneurs. The other teaches agency pricing and ops to full service shops. Both get their own row in the fork below.

Traffic and Conversion Summit, the closest thing to a real answer, is the one that's actually gone. Its own organizers confirmed it is no longer running. It still shows up on marketing conference listicles with a phantom future date, which is exactly the trap that sends people searching for it a year too late.

Funnel Hacking Live shrank from thousands of seats to 1,042, then Brunson ended it

Funnel Hacking Live ran every year from 2014 to 2025. It was never small. The organizer’s own retirement announcement puts the lifetime total at over 30,000 entrepreneurs and more than 3,500 Two Comma Club Awards handed out on that stage.

In March 2026, Brunson ended the brand. The official announcement put it in four words: we killed Funnel Hacking Live. What came back in September was billed as an encore, not a resumption.

The comeback was smaller on purpose. Brunson’s own post says it plainly: this isn’t a 5,000 person event anymore, there are 1,042 seats, one time only. General admission opened at just $200, with VIP at $500, far under what past editions charged.

It sold out anyway. By September 16, 2026, the floor was full and only a waitlist remained. A room a fifth the old size still filled.

No 2027 date exists. Nothing in the research behind this guide turns one up, and the organizer’s own framing leaves it open on purpose: something new is coming, but nobody has said when or what. Plan your 2027 around that gap, not around a rumor.

The badges left run from $500 to $25,000

The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive badge runs fifty times over. Hero Conf’s $500 pass sits at one end. Genius Network’s $25,000 seat sits at the other.

Genius Network is a membership, not a ticket. Members pay $25,000 a year to belong, and the non-member seat still runs $10,000 to $15,000. One forum thread describes the founder bluntly. He "runs genius network for coaches and they pay 25k and 100k to be in his mastermind." That is the kind of spend a field marketer would call a five figure bet, not an impulse ticket.

Funnel Hacking Live's farewell was priced low for what it was. At $200 to $500 it undercut its own history, and it still sold out at 1,042 seats. Price was never the reason people wanted in.

None of these four numbers tells you which room actually fits. A $500 badge and a $25,000 seat can both be the wrong purchase for the same shop. The fork below sorts that out by what you actually sell, not by the sticker price.

Pick the room by which side of the funnel you build, not by the biggest name

Every one of these rooms is built for one kind of buyer. Match the room to what you actually sell, and most shops on this page land on the bottom row.

VSL and funnel building points at the Funnel Hacking Live waitlist. It is the only room built for exactly this work, and it is closed for now. Join the waitlist and treat any seat that opens as a bonus, not a plan.

Paid traffic work points at Hero Conf. A PPC specialist who has attended puts it plainly. "I wouldn't recommend going for learning. But can be a good opportunity to talk shop with other PPC people", which is the room to buy for, not the sessions.

A fuller agency has Build a Better Agency Summit. It teaches pricing, hiring and ops to agencies where funnel work is one line item among several, the same shape other performance marketing agencies ask about when a general marketing conference does not fit their niche either.

If you can't justify the badge, most of this page is optional. One blunt answer to whether marketing conferences are worth it still holds here: if you own an agency and are looking to gain sales don't go to a conference geared towards agencies. Go to the room built for your exact service, or skip the badge entirely.

Referrals and cold outreach still win more funnel clients than any badge

Funnel and VSL work is real money, which keeps forums full of people asking how to find clients for it. One thread asks directly where clients looking for direct response copywriting hang out. The answer across dozens of similar threads is rarely a conference.

Referrals carry most shops that last. One agency owner who has not found clients difficult to land says clients come from referrals, SEO, and some light outreach, with almost no cold prospecting at all. Another calls old leads and taps their existing network before trying anything new.

LinkedIn and cold email are the default combo. One agency owner describing how they landed their first client says it plain and simple. "LinkedIn is a gold mine for getting new clients and referrals." Cold email runs alongside it for most shops.

On cold outreach itself, the forums split. One camp says plainly, "Cold outreach isn't overrated. It's just usually done poorly." The other reports results that are mostly hit or miss and low quality, and we side with the first camp: targeting decides the outcome, not the channel.

Peer agencies refer work to each other constantly. One owner is directly looking to network with other marketing agencies that are already profitable, precisely to build that referral chain. A PPC agency owner scaling up reaches out to their professional network for the same reason.

One competitor’s own pitch shows how much is actually on the line. A VSL shop marketing itself on r/agency promises this. "We guarantee 10 high-ticket clients or you pay nothing." The price tag is $7,000 to $13,000 up front. That is the real client acquisition economics this audience is working against, badge or no badge.

If you land a seat, or just a waitlist spot, do this

If you do land a seat, the badge buys you the room, not the deal. What happens before you land, and how fast you follow up after, decides whether the trip pays for itself.

Join both waitlists now, before you plan anything else. Funnel Hacking Live and Hero Conf are the only two events on this page with any live ticketing at all, and one of them is already closed.

Get the attendee list before you pack. B2B marketers on one thread say the attendee list thing isn't really gatekept, most people simply do not think to ask for it. A second thread agrees: find the list, then prioritize the people you genuinely want to meet.

Work the floor, not the stage. At either event, the hallway between sessions is where the real conversations happen. Pick one session a day and give the rest of your time to people.

Follow up before the badge is off your desk. A sales thread on trade show leads is direct about it. Speed to the lead is what counts, so send a note the same day, referencing the actual conversation.

Judge the trip by one number. Not the badge scans, not the business cards. One new client within thirty days means the trip earned its cost. Nothing after that is a bonus worth flying back for.

What to do about each thing you see

Things to stop doing

• Searching for a dedicated funnel marketing conference. It does not exist, and Funnel Hacking Live just proved the closest thing to it can end overnight.
• Planning a 2027 trip around a Funnel Hacking Live sequel nobody has announced.
• Treating Genius Network as a conference you can just buy into. It is a $10,000-and-up membership mastermind.
• Waiting for Traffic and Conversion Summit to come back. It will not.
• Booking Build a Better Agency Summit to find funnel clients. It teaches agency ops, not client acquisition for this niche.
• Skipping referrals and cold outreach because they feel slower than a badge. The threads above say they work more often.

A planning checklist, by month

• This month: join the Funnel Hacking Live waitlist and the Hero Conf ticket list, even if you are not sure you will go.
• Four months out: pick from the fork above, or decide this is a year to skip conferences entirely.
• Three months out: if a Hero Conf seat opens, buy it in the early window.
• Six weeks out: get the attendee list, and message ten people by name.
• Two weeks out: ask your last three happy clients for a referral or a testimonial.
• The week after any event: one follow up per real conversation, sent the same week.

The short version

• Funnel Hacking Live Encore: Sept 21 to 23, 2026, Las Vegas, $200 to $500, already sold out.
• The brand was retired in March 2026. No 2027 date exists anywhere.
• Genius Network Annual Event: Nov 5 to 7, 2026, Scottsdale, $10,000 to $25,000, also sold out.
• Hero Conf US: Sept 9 to 10, 2027, San Diego, from $500. The only real date in the back half of 2027, and it is a paid traffic event.
• Build a Better Agency Summit: May 24 to 26, 2027, Denver, $2,195 and up. Agency ops, not funnel work.
• Traffic and Conversion Summit is confirmed gone, despite still showing up on old best-of lists.
• The badges range fifty times over, from $500 to $25,000, and price alone does not tell you who is in the room.
• Referrals, local organizations, LinkedIn and cold outreach win more funnel clients than any of them.
• If you go, get the attendee list first, work the hallway, and follow up the same week.

Read next

• Video Sales Letter: What a VSL Is, How It Is Built, and What the Edit Is Doing, for the six part shape and what a VSL edit costs.
• Video Testimonials: Ask Questions, Do Not Hand Out Scripts, for interviewing a client on camera for the proof a funnel needs.
• White Label Video Editing: What Agencies Actually Pay, for the per hour math behind running client video under your own name.

If you make or edit video podcasts instead of funnels, that is a different circuit with its own dates. We are working on a separate guide for it, so this one stays about funnel and VSL work only. Chasing a badge is optional, but keeping up with the VSLs and testimonials your referrals are about to send you is not. That is the gap we fill: your first video is free up to four editing hours, and agency work after that runs a flat $18 an hour.

Last reviewed 18 September 2026. Every date and ticket price on this page is from the event's own page or its organizer's own posts, linked beside it, and every claim about how these shops find clients is a real forum post, linked where it is used, both as read on that date.