THE UPLEVEL SUMMIT
Virtual Summit for Professional Speakers
18th of November 2026
Fees.
Marketing.
Delivery.
What do professional speakers need to know now to be ready for 2027?
How speakers are discovered is changing. What event organisers expect is changing.
AI is changing how speakers are researched.
Budgets are being scrutinised, audiences expect more, and the difference between being a good speaker and a consistently booked speaker is becoming increasingly important.
So perhaps the question isn't simply:
“How do I get more speaking bookings?”
Perhaps the better question is:
What do I need to understand and change now to make myself more valuable, visible and bookable in 2027?
That is the conversation at the heart of The UpLevel Summit.
We're bringing together leading experts from across the professional speaking industry for four candid fireside chats, each designed to go beyond the generic advice we've all heard before.
No endless presentations.
No theory for theory's sake.
No content you could have found with a quick Google search or by asking ChatGPT.
Instead, we're going behind the scenes of the professional speaking industry to explore what's really happening, what the people inside it are seeing and, most importantly, what you should be doing about it.
FEES
What should you be charging in 2027?
When should you increase your fee?
What makes an organiser prepared to pay one speaker significantly more than another?
How do you communicate your value without simply adding another £1,000 to your rate card?
Because increasing your fee isn't simply about charging more.
It's about understanding how to become worth more.
MARKETING
Being brilliant on stage isn't enough if the people who could book you don't know you exist.
How are speakers going to be discovered in 2027? What role will AI play? What are bookers actually looking at when they research you? Does your positioning immediately make sense? And are your marketing and speaker assets helping you get shortlisted—or quietly removing you from consideration?
The way speakers market themselves is changing.
Are you changing with it?
DELIVERY
The bar has moved.
Audiences have access to extraordinary content every day, and event organisers need to justify the investment they're making in their speakers.
So what does great delivery look like heading into 2027?
We'll explore what separates a speaker who gets applause from a speaker who gets recommended, rebooked and remembered.
Because getting onto the stage is only half the job.
What you do when you get there determines what happens next.
Virtual Stagecraft for Speakers
It’s time to fall in love with online gigs.
Erica Farmer - First Up - Virtual Stagecraft for Speakers
Let’s face it: speaking online is not the same as speaking in a room.
You can’t rely on the energy of the audience, the atmosphere in the room or even that reassuring sea of faces looking back at you.
So how do you create connection, energy and engagement when your audience is sitting behind a screen?
That’s where Virtual Stagecraft comes in.
Erica with her company has trained and upskilled more than 5,000 trainers, tutors, presenters and consultants in virtual delivery and online learning through her training company, Quantum Rise Talent Group.
As a certified online facilitator and learning leader, she knows what makes virtual audiences lean in rather than switch off, and she brings those techniques into her own virtual speaking and AI gigs, where audience engagement is consistently one of the highlights of her feedback.
This taster workshop is for speakers who want to go beyond simply presenting online and learn how to make the virtual stage work for them.
In this session, you’ll:
Understand your audience’s brain — and why it behaves differently online than it does in the room.
Be introduced to the power of visual design — and how the right combination of slides and graphics can increase your audience's knowledge retention by up to 65%.
Discover two simple interaction techniques — and how to use them to boost engagement in your very next online talk.
No complicated tech. No reinventing your entire presentation. And definitely no breakout rooms or death-by-polling.
Just smart, practical techniques to help you become a more engaging, memorable and confident virtual speaker.
Because the screen doesn’t have to be the barrier between you and your audience. It can be your stage.
Next up - Maria Franzoni
How to Get Booked More, Charge More and Earn More with
Small changes that can make a big difference to your speaking business
Most speakers assume that growing their speaking business means doing more: more marketing, more content, more networking, more prospecting.
But some of the biggest improvements in a speaking business come from relatively small changes in the things that already affect whether someone books you, what they are prepared to pay and whether they come back.
Drawing on 23 years as a speaker agent and bureau owner, Maria will explore the economics behind bookability: why some speakers are consistently easier to buy, easier to justify and easier to rebook, and how relatively small improvements in positioning, visibility, perceived value, pricing and the buying experience can compound into significantly more revenue.
The conversation will look at what the most commercially successful speakers do differently, why being brilliant on stage isn't enough, and where speakers should focus if they want to get booked more, charge more and earn more without simply working harder.
Third Up - David Stollman
Fee to
FEE
How to stop charging less and start charging more
David Stollman boasts an impressive five-to-one record, co-founding four successful startups and one “learning experience.” His ventures – CAMPUSPEAK, EVERGREEN Speakers, LaunchPoint Consulting, and The HazingPrevention Network – all share a common thread: transparent values, powerful content, and a customer centered experience.
With three decades under his belt, David has keynoted on over 800 college and university stages, impacting more than 1 million students across 49 states and Canada. His zone of genius covers fraternity and sorority issues: recruitment, organizational values alignment and hazing prevention. But lately, David’s focused on amplifying other voices, spearheading the launch of over 100 speakers into the education market through CAMPUSPEAK since 1999.
AND THEN WE'LL BRING IT ALL TOGETHER
Our fourth fireside conversation will look directly towards 2027 and the future of professional speaking.
What's changing?
What are buyers looking for?
Where are the opportunities?
What should speakers stop doing?
What are the speakers who are consistently getting booked doing differently?
And where should you be investing your time, energy and money now if you want to enter 2027 ahead of the curve?
This isn't about giving you more information.
Professional speakers don't have an information problem.
We have access to more information than at any point in history.
What we need is insight.
Insight from people who are actually working inside the industry.
The conversations that normally happen behind closed doors.
The nuances that don't make it into LinkedIn posts.
The things you learn from experience rather than a search engine.
And then we need to turn those insights into action.
Every fireside chat at The Up Level Summit will therefore be built around practical, implementable steps.
Things you can change.
Things you can test.
Things you can stop doing.
And things you can start doing immediately.
Because I don't want you to leave The UpLevel Summit with another notebook full of ideas.
I want you to leave knowing what you're going to do differently.
Fireside chats.
Leading professional speaking industry experts.
Fees. Marketing. Delivery.
And one big question:
Are you ready for 2027?
THE UPLEVEL SUMMIT for professional speakers
AND THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENING…
The Up Level Summit won’t only be about preparing your speaking business for 2027.
We’ll also be sharing more about The Speaker Summit 2027.
You’ll be amongst the first to hear what we’re planning, how the event is evolving, some of the thinking behind next year’s Summit and what you can expect when we bring the professional speaking community together again.
But more importantly, you’ll also discover how you could be part of it.
One of the things I want to do as we build towards 2027 is create opportunities for people within our community to get involved, contribute and potentially become part of what we’re creating.
So if you’ve ever looked at The Speaker Summit and thought, “I’d love to be part of that,” you’ll want to be at The Up Level Summit.
We’ll be revealing more on the day.
Because 2027 isn’t simply something I want us to talk about.
It’s something I want us to build together.
So come to The Up Level Summit to understand what’s changing around fees, marketing and delivery.
Come to hear the conversations you can’t simply Google or ask ChatGPT.
Come away with practical actions you can implement in your speaking business.
And come to discover what’s next for The Speaker Summit 2027 — and how you might become part of it.
Fireside chats. Leading industry experts.
Practical insight you can actually use.
FEES. MARKETING. DELIVERY.
Plus, your first look at what’s coming for The Speaker Summit 2027.
Are you ready to Up Level?
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