David Adler
Curator in Chief, GatheringPoint.News
David Adler has spent his career chasing one idea: that when people gather with intention, they change the world. From Washington salons to mega-conferences, his work has mapped the hidden architecture of connection — how ideas spread, cultures evolve, and influence is staged.
He first made his mark fresh out of college with Washington Dossier, a glossy chronicler of the capital’s social ecosystem — part gossip column, part anthropological study of power and civility in the nation’s pre-internet salons. Decades later, he transformed the events landscape with BizBash, the media platform that professionalized an entire industry, turning planners into producers, and producers into cultural architects.
Today, as Curator in Chief of GatheringPoint.News, Adler leads the conversation about the future of live experiences — from conferences and festivals to political rallies, weddings, and protest movements. His Substack-based publication treats event organizing as both an art form and a strategy engine, blending cultural intelligence with neuroscience, design thinking, and a sharp dose of magazine-era storytelling.
A lifelong convenor, Adler has chronicled how gatherings serve as society’s R&D labs — places where trust is built, commerce is accelerated, and belonging is rehearsed. His book Harnessing Serendipity distills decades of that observation into a philosophy of collaboration that guides his work and the next generation of conveners he’s now mentoring.
Under Adler’s leadership, Gathering Point has become the meeting ground for the “experience era” — a world where data, design, and human chemistry collide to define what happens next. His editorial projects span from the Platinum Gatherings Series and Event Entrepreneur White Paper to the Weekend Wisdom Bank and Culture Drop Weekly, all dedicated to decoding the people, companies, and ideas shaping how the world connects.
Based in Washington, D.C., after three decades in New York, Adler remains a restless observer of how culture, commerce, and emotion intersect on the live stage. His mission is simple but radical: to make the act of gathering matter again — not as logistics, but as leadership.