Most are dreadful. The art of hospitality is booming, as is that of the conference. Professional cooks are hired, with the finest wines, the best of settings, the most talented musicians. There is no shortage of visual aids, amplification and reproduction. No expense is spared.
Professionalism is all.
Then someone makes a speech. Civilisation suddenly has to pretend that Demosthenes and Cicero never lived. In the Middle Ages, the speaker would have been trained. He would have studied rhetoric. But he believed in the profession of speech.