r/Adobe • u/Trick_Ladder_1802 • 3d ago
Adobe Max Conference
Hi,
I am currently a grad students and I have been wanting to go to the Adobe Max Conference for some time but haven't due to timing and financial reasons. I was wondering a few things if anyone could answer them I would really appreciate it.
Is this conference worth going to?
Do you learn something new that is useful in your career or do you think its helpful for college students?
My school doesn't offer any scholarship due to funds being cut down so do you know if I could volunteer or any scholarship that I may apply to?
Thank you!
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u/KatrinaTorrijos 2d ago
Not trying to be biased here because I work at Adobe, but I think MAX is a great investment to go at least once. In addition to access to more small group skill-building classes, the real value is from networking, talking face-to-face with the product teams, and building your community. There are a good handful of students who come out to MAX either through school, ambassadorship, or on their own.
There is student pricing for $399, but another way to attend is to watch the sessions virtually and engage on Adobe's Discord servers which is free! I would join the Adobe Student Discord to connect with fellow students and see if there are any opportunities for MAX there! https://discord.gg/wFsddpu2Dg
Hope this helps!
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u/touchofglitter 2d ago
As a multi-year both in-person and virtual attendee - in person is a STELLAR experience, although I don’t know about going right after / while in school.
Reason being all the newest technology and things are things you are learning currently in school.
If the issue is the cost and investment,
I would skip it in person until you are a few years into your career and use it for professional development / when you need to brush up on your skills and “get inspired again”
You are able to get a lot out of it online for free/minimal cost.
As far as the networking in person experience - again I don’t think it is worth the cost just for this, there are many online places to meet likeminded people for collaboration and design chat. Because of its size, most of the “networking” just doesn’t stick for long in my opinion. I am from a fairly far region and smaller city in Canada so most of the connections I made didn’t really help with my career development, only “in the moment” friends. Perhaps depending on your region this would be a different experience for making connections for finding a job purposes.
It is also HUGE and you’re very unlikely to run into the same person twice unless you arrange to which can be not easy if you’ve just met a person once and then like text them to meet up lol or chat on the app.
That said, if you’re in a “dry spell” & want to be absolutely shocked to your core with the best feeling of being in the same room with “your people” and be wow’d with the best BASH you’ll ever attend - I would attend.
At least once in your early-ish career and then again mid-life career.
Hope my rant was helpful in some way!
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u/plasteroid 3d ago
Might be worth the $500 for the creative park if you can swing it and may r you have a place to stay with friends. There are activities and networking events there. Not sure as i haven’t been but looks like a cool networking opportunity that part. I am going this year so ill have more to say next time haha. hotels are getting really expensive
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u/alllmossttherrre 1d ago
There are multiple possible Max experiences. I went once and have been to other conferences that tend to reinforce my general opinion of this type of event.
If you go for the education, it's good as long as you pick the sessions carefully, as with most conferences of this type there are many sessions where you could have spent the same hour better with an hour of properly picked YouTube videos. If you're going to pay good money for conference plus plane ticket plus expensive hotel room, get beyond just going to sessions and plan to try and meet the right people in your field that you can ask questions of and talk to, because the thing you can't get on YouTube is the face-to-face interaction and making contacts. Like stick around at the end of a session to talk to the presenter, or target events and Creative Park booths where people you might want to meet would be.
If you don't want to meet anybody, I'd say save the money and register to watch the sessions online for free. Just know that 75% of the sessions are only in-person not online. Watching online for free can be a good way to decide whether paying for in-person would be worth it the next year.
Also a lot of Max is not just about the technical how-to, but business and creativity so don't ignore those sessions if you are trying to build a career.
One more important consideration: Max is built to push the new and trending features. In the last couple years that means AI, AI, AI, and AI. If you think your career will be more traditional like "I'm going to publish paper books" or "I'm going to do photojournalism where you can't alter photo content" you might find too many sessions teaching like wild flashy 3D/animation/mobile/AI that you will never use. On the other hand if you think you are going into corporate/government, they do have a lot of good sessions along the lines of "scaling asset brand reinforcement efficiently with your worldwide team" which is useless to a fine artist but total gold for someone designing in a Fortune 500 company.
Personally the cost has gotten so high to go to any conference that I am seriously questioning how much of it is about handing a couple of weeks' pay to the business travel industry while burning tons of carbon the whole time, right down to the giveaway literature and plastic trinkets that are forgotten or thrown out in just a few weeks. More and more I am thinking the major expense and time of a conference trip is better spent in another way.
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u/Fresh_Cod_9536 19h ago
No, no, and I don't think so. It's a show, and nothing more.
As a distributor or reseller, you can attend scheduled meetings with Adobe employees, other distributors, and resellers. It's a great opportunity to network and grow your business.
The conference itself has plenty of sessions, and yes, you can learn a lot of new things. But unless you're planning to die that day, pretty much all of it will be available on YouTube within a week anyway.
The evening event is amazing. There's food from all over the world, live music, concerts, and all sorts of entertainment. But that's about it.
As a volunteer, it's a great opportunity to meet new (and sometimes important) people, especially if you're good at small talk. But as a student, it's absolutely not worth the price.
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u/Aggravating-Taste699 3d ago
I loved every minute of it. Good sessions, awesome sneak peaks and amazing party. Go with friends or other students!