Microsoft Splits Ignite Into Two Events

With every conference from Microsoft going virtual until the summer of 2021, the company is making changes to its traditional lineup. As with many things in 2020, Microsoft will be splitting Ignite into two events.

As the company previously announced, the first of the two Ignite events will be held in late September, the 22-24. That’s fewer days than previous Ignites that were week-long learning events; the second part of Ignite will happen in early 2021.

The post, written by Microsoft’s CMO, Chris Capossela, points out that the event happening in early 2021 is not replacing the company’s developer conference, Build.

Ignite will be a free learning event that spans 48 hours but we don’t know yet the dates for the 2021 portion of the conference. But, you can likely assume that it will follow a similar format to the portion of Ignite that is happening next month. And to little surprise, the traveling Ignite events that take the show on the road following the fall conference will not be happening this year.

This is a significant change for Ignite which is traditionally the largest IT-Pro focused conference on the calendar. While we wait for the traditional conference to come back, these changes will likely play a role in shaping how all Microsoft conferences evolve once we can meet in-person again.