1. Individuals and Industries: Large-Scale Professional Gatherings as Ethnographic Fields -- 2. Scheduled Schmoozing: Notes on Interludal Practices at Responsible Investors’ Conferences -- 3. White Corporate Feminine Spirituality: The Rise of Global Professional Women’s Conferences in the New Millennium -- 4. The Therapeutic Square: The Psychotherapy Fair from an Anthropological Perspective -- 5. Establishing the Complexity of Obesity: The Conference as a Site of Understanding Obesity as a Medical Condition -- 6. The Biennial of Dakar: Scales of Art Worlds-Networks -- 7. Beyond Informality: Intimacy and Commerce at the Caravanning Trade Fair -- 8. Traversing Trade Fairs and Fashion Weeks: On Dependence and Disavowal in the Indian Fashion Industry.This anthology is an attempt to make sense of conferences and trade fairs as phenomena in contemporary society. The authors describe how these large-scale professional gatherings have become key sites for making and negotiating both industries and individual professions. In fact, during the past few decades, conferences and trade fairs have become a significant global industry in their own right. The editors assert that large-scale professional gatherings are remarkable events that require deeper analysis and scholarly attention. .