The Summit Circus: Why We Keep Gathering World Leaders for Expensive Photo Ops That Change Nothing
I'm crouched behind a potted plant in the Hyatt Regency's west corridor while three security guys in identical black suits scan the lobby for unauthorized personnel. That's me. I've got press credentials hanging around my neck, but they're for tomorrow's sessions, not today's "closed-door preliminary discussions." Whatever. The plant's fake and it's scratching my neck, but I've got a perfect view of seven diplomats huddled around a coffee table, frantically revising a joint statement that will be forgotten by next Tuesday. Welcome to the absurd theater of international summitry, where I've been embedded for the past 72 hours without a proper shower.
The Summit Industrial Complex
Let's be real for a minute. The World Health Organization just announced they're hosting their second Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in 2026, and somewhere, a team of event planners is already negotiating hotel block rates and designing commemorative tote bags. I've been to eleven of these international gatherings in the past year alone, and they all follow the same script: grand declarations, carefully orchestrated photo opportunities, and final communiqués drafted weeks before anyone even boards a plane. According to my sources at three different foreign ministries (who'd be fired if I named them), most of the "breakthroughs" announced at these events were negotiated months earlier through regular diplomatic channels. The summit itself? It's theater, folks. Expensive, carbon-intensive theater.
The pattern is painfully predictable. Take the upcoming EU-Western Balkans summit scheduled for December 17, 2025. Right now, in offices across Brussels and Belgrade, staffers are preparing briefing books that will be skimmed at best. They're drafting speeches that will be applauded and promptly forgotten. The International Airport Summit Roundtables 2025 promises to "focus on the top five industry themes," according to International Airport Review. But having covered similar industry gatherings, I can tell you what really happens: PowerPoint presentations in dimly lit ballrooms while the real deals get made in hotel bars after hours. You're not supposed to know this, but the official programs are often just cover for the unofficial meetings.
The High-Stakes Mirage
PBS reports that "EU leaders are preparing to take unprecedented steps to help Ukraine at a high-stakes summit." I've heard this exact phrasing before every EU summit for the past three years. "Unprecedented." "High-stakes." The vocabulary of urgency gets recycled while the actual policy shifts in microscopic increments. Last night, I cornered a German diplomat (three whiskeys in) who admitted, "These summits create the illusion of action when often we're just repackaging existing commitments." He wouldn't go on record, of course. Nobody does. The summit ecosystem depends on maintaining the fiction that each gathering is essential, historic, transformative.
You might think I'm being cynical. I'm not. I'm being realistic. After watching CAPA choose Cairns, Australia for its international aviation summit (as reported by c-mw.net), I can tell you the location selection process reveals more about the priorities than any official statement. Destinations compete fiercely to host these events, not primarily for the policy outcomes but for the tourism dollars and prestige. One tourism board executive told me over coffee, "We'll spend millions to host a three-day summit because it puts us on the map. The actual content? Secondary." The summit circuit has become an industry unto itself, with specialized event companies, security firms, and logistics operators who move from city to city, setting up the infrastructure for these diplomatic spectacles.
The Empathy Glitch
There's something profoundly weird about how these events function in parallel universes. While Mirage News reports that Penn State is co-hosting a Global Empathy Summit, I've watched diplomats at similar gatherings step over homeless people to enter venues where they'll discuss poverty reduction. It's a glitch in the matrix – these high-minded discussions happen in hermetically sealed environments, completely disconnected from the realities they purport to address. Last month, I watched security remove climate protesters from outside a sustainability conference while inside, leaders congratulated themselves on ambitious targets they've consistently failed to meet.
The pandemic briefly disrupted this circuit, forcing everyone into virtual meetings. For a moment, it seemed like we might question the necessity of flying thousands of people around the globe for conversations that could happen on Zoom. According to Search Engine Journal, some of "The Best SEO Conferences For 2025-2026 will be held virtually and in-person," showing that hybrid models are viable. But the international diplomatic community has largely reverted to pre-pandemic patterns, insisting that "face-to-face diplomacy" is irreplaceable. Maybe. But having watched diplomats spend more time on their phones than engaging with counterparts across the table, I'm skeptical about how much genuine connection is happening.
The Underground Reality
Here's what you won't read in the official summit coverage: there's an entire underground economy that operates in the shadows of these events. I've met the fixers who arrange everything from off-the-record meetings between adversaries to procuring specific regional delicacies for picky delegates. One such fixer – let's call him Marco – explained his role to me in a hotel kitchen at 2 AM: "I make the impossible possible. Need to get a message to someone you can't be seen talking to? Need to ensure your delegation gets seated far from a problematic country? I handle it." These invisible facilitators often accomplish more than the formal sessions, creating back channels that bypass the performative aspects of summit diplomacy.
The most honest conversations happen in elevators, bathroom lines, and hotel gyms at 5 AM. A Southeast Asian diplomat told me while we were both waiting for treadmills, "The formal sessions are where we recite our governments' positions. The real work happens here, or over breakfast, or during the cultural excursion when the press isn't paying attention." This underground reality of summit diplomacy rarely makes it into official accounts, but it's where incremental progress sometimes occurs, despite the theatrical nature of the main event.
Reimagining the Gathering
I'm not arguing we should abandon international gatherings entirely. There's value in bringing decision-makers together. But the current model is broken – bloated, performative, and increasingly disconnected from results. Some innovators are experimenting with alternatives. Smaller, issue-focused meetings with concrete deliverables. Summits that embed participants in affected communities rather than sequestering them in luxury hotels. Technology-enabled continuous dialogue rather than sporadic, high-profile gatherings.
The most effective summit I've witnessed in recent years broke every rule of the established format. No flags, no formal speeches, no pre-negotiated communiqués. Instead, leaders were paired with experts and affected community members for problem-solving workshops. They visited project sites instead of conference rooms. The media wasn't invited to staged photo ops but to witness actual deliberations. The results weren't world-changing, but they were tangible – specific commitments tied to timelines and funding mechanisms, with built-in accountability measures.
As we look toward upcoming gatherings like the second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in 2026, we should question the default format. Do we need another convention center filled with posters and pamphlets? Another series of speeches and panels? Another final declaration that will gather digital dust on organizational websites? Or could we imagine something more authentic, more connected to the challenges these summits purport to address?
I'm writing this from the hotel bar, where three diplomats from countries that officially don't speak to each other are sharing a bottle of scotch and sketching something on a napkin. Whatever they're creating looks more promising than anything I saw in the official sessions today. Maybe that's where we should be looking for the future of international cooperation – not in the spotlight, but in the margins where real human connection happens despite the pageantry, not because of it.