For a property manager running 20+ units, three separate trips inside one quarter add up fast, in cost and in time away from the business. VRMA, VRWS, and SCALE Fest all land within seven weeks of each other this fall, a scheduling collision that won’t go away next year either. The property managers who get the most out of conference season aren’t the ones who show up everywhere. They’re the ones who match the event to what their business actually needs right now.
VRMA 26 Nashville: October 4–6, Music City Center
VRMA is the vacation rental industry’s largest gathering, typically pulling 2500 to 3,200 attendees. This scale gives you the opportunity to be in the midst of the widest vendor ecosystem and largest concentration of US operators. VRMA, the association behind it, also runs ongoing advocacy work on short-term rental regulations year-round.
The full education schedule is still being finalized, but a few sessions are locked (i.e., we know the sessions PriceLabs will be leading; insider information!).
VRMA runs Learning Labs, a four-hour block of pre-conference workshops on day one (12–4 pm, before the Welcome Reception), separate from the main breakout program.
- “Revenue Management: From Foundations to Action”: a Learning Lab on pricing fundamentals.
- “Know Your Wiring, Know Your Team”: a Learning Lab built around the Predictive Index, a behavioral-assessment tool used for hiring and team design, applied here to property management leadership.
- “Map Your Team Against AI: A Framework for Every Role in Property Management” led byThibault Masson, Head of Product Marketing at PriceLabs and founder of RSU by PriceLabs, mapping which parts of a PM role shift to AI and which stay human.
- “Where Is Your Company Leaking Revenue?” a 90-minute workshop (Mon Oct 5, 11am, Skills Lab) with Richie Khandelwal (co-founder, PriceLabs, a revenue management platform) and Heather Richer (Richer Logic, a revenue management consulting firm), plus Quinn Foster (Feather PMS).
- A session on AI in PriceLabs in VRMA’s Education Hub, a fast-paced, 20-minute talk in the expo hall, built by Thibault Masson with Monique DeLorenzo Pomeroy (PriceLabs).
Should you go? If you’re US-based, yes, the vendor ecosystem alone is deep enough to be worth the trip, and VRMA’s regulatory advocacy work is the kind of thing you can’t get anywhere else. The catch is that none of it comes pre-curated for you: with the breakout program this broad and largely still unannounced, you need to walk in with a plan for who you want to meet and which sessions actually serve your business, rather than assuming the agenda will do that work for you.
VRWS 2026: October 8–9, Lyon
No concurrent sessions, one track everyone attends together, capped around 600–800 operators. The 2026 session lineup is already published in full.
Beyond the keynote track, VRWS also runs structured roundtables, working a specific problem with 6–8 peers rather than just watching a stage. It also runs “Speed-Dating” sessions, two 60-minute blocks (one per day) where you book back-to-back one-on-one meetings with exhibiting companies through the VRWS app, a fast way to vet vendors without cold-walking the expo floor.
- Jordi Suarez Cambra (Airbnb) opens with a look at growth trends behind the portfolio, what’s actually driving booking patterns across markets right now.
- Sabrina Mulligan (Zzzing) on AI-driven guest experience, and how it ties directly back to revenue and guest recovery.
- Sharon Biggar (VP Marketing, PriceLabs) walks through the seven most common revenue leaks, from listing content to stale benchmarks.
- Vered Raviv-Schwarz (President & COO, Guesty) on managing a team that’s already part AI, and where to draw the line as it scales.
Should you go? If your portfolio sits in Europe, yes, the payoff is a single curated track on revenue management and AI with no wasted sessions, plus roundtables where you work a real problem with a small group of peers instead of just watching a stage. The trade-off is that it’s built specifically for pricing and ops depth, so if you’re traveling this year for a growth or exit conversation rather than tightening the numbers, SCALE Fest three weeks later is the better use of the trip.
SCALE Fest 2026: October 24–25, Barcelona
Tickets go exclusively to operators managing 10+ units, same operator-only model SCALE runs in the UK. No service providers buy their way into the attendee list. 2026 also moves to a full weekend, festival-style format for the first time, with 400+ operators expected.
Confirmed tracks span global CEO panels, book-direct and AI strategy, brand building, regulatory clinics, and The Exit Door for operators weighing a sale. Confirmed speakers include Shahar Goldboim (CEO, Boom) on the CEO panel circuit and Mark Simpson (founder, Boostly) on direct booking strategy. The full session-to-speaker matrix wasn’t public as of this writing; check the live agenda closer to the date.
Should you go? Also in Europe, so the choice against VRWS comes down to focus, not geography. Pick SCALE Fest if you’re actively working a growth or exit decision and want a room where every attendee is an operator, not a vendor giving the keynote.
So, which one should you actually go to?
- VRWS if you want revenue and AI depth in one curated track.
- SCALE Fest if you’re working a scaling, book-direct or exit decision, peer-only.
- VRMA if you’re US-based and want the vendor ecosystem and advocacy scale.
VRMA and VRWS sit four days apart, so combining them into one trip is realistic. SCALE Fest, three weeks later, is a separate call.
A few more worth knowing about
The full 2026 calendar is in our conference roundup. A handful of others worth a look:
North America
- NEIRA Annual Conference 2026 (Nov 4–6, Brewster, MA, USA): regional, for New England portfolios.
- Skift Global Forum 2026 (Sept 22–24, New York, USA): broader hospitality and travel-tech audience.
- The Hospitality Show 2026 (Nov 2–4, Miami Beach, USA): wider hospitality crossover.
Europe
- SCALE France 2026 (Nov 25–26, Paris, France): same operator-only format as SCALE Fest, for the French market.
- VRM Days Croatia 2026 (Oct 20–21, Split, Croatia): regional, for Adriatic-market portfolios.
Middle East
- SCALE Middle East 2026 (Sept 30–Oct 1, Dubai, UAE): same operator-only format as SCALE Fest.
Online
- Direct Booking Success Summit 2026 (Nov 17–19): free, if budget is the constraint.
Want more of this before October?
We track every short-term rental conference in our Events directory, updated as new ones are announced. Running an event we’re missing? Get in touch, and we’ll add it.
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Will AI Destroy the Revenue Manager? What I Heard at Scale UK 2026
