Conference season in dentistry runs almost year round, and the planning happens months before anyone books a flight.
If you are trying to decide which dental conferences are worth your team’s time and travel budget, the hard part is not finding a list. It is finding one that covers the events built for your role. Dental conferences fall into four distinct categories, clinical continuing education, practice management, group and DSO leadership, and technology evaluation, and most published roundups cover only the first two.
That gap is the reason a group practice leader can read most of the lists in this category and never encounter the events designed for them. Below are ten events across all four, including the DSO circuit that runs almost entirely separate from the clinical one.
The DSO Circuit And The Clinical Circuit Barely Overlap
The lists a group practice leader is most likely to land on are almost entirely clinical and practice-management events. We read through six of them, including those published by Delmain, Princess Dental Staffing, Weave, SMC National, 1st Source Bank and Dental Claim Support.
Three of the six contain no mention of DSOs at all. A fourth mentions the term once, in a navigation menu rather than in the article. Only two treat group and DSO events as a category worth covering, and one of those is written specifically for that audience.
Meanwhile the DSO-specific events, ADSO’s gatherings, Dykema, the DSO Tech Summit, the Dental Leadership Summit and Women in DSO, circulate almost entirely within the group-practice world and rarely appear on the general lists at all.
What we commonly see is a group sending people to whichever conference someone remembers from last year, without checking whether the programming still matches what the organization needs now.
For context on how concentrated that side of the industry has become, our breakdown of the largest DSOs operating in the US covers who is doing the consolidating.
What Actually Separates These Events
Almost every roundup answers the same question: when and where. That is the easy part, and the part that goes out of date. The harder question is who each event is actually built for.
Clinical continuing education
Licensure hours and clinical skill, delivered through lecture halls, hands-on workshops and a large exhibit floor. Operations and technology leaders will find a handful of relevant sessions inside a program that was not designed with them in mind.
Practice management and office administration
Scheduling, billing, insurance, hiring, turnover. Office managers and administrators are the intended attendee.
For a single location or a small group this category usually returns the most operational value per dollar spent, and it is the one most likely to send someone home with a process they can implement on Monday.
Group and DSO leadership
These open at a different starting point. They assume the clinical side is handled and spend the agenda on growth strategy, acquisitions, legal and regulatory matters, and the operational reality of running locations that have to behave like one organization.
Technology and vendor evaluation
The smallest of the four, and the one most likely to appear as a track inside a larger event rather than as an event of its own.
Dental Conferences And DSO Events To Know
The right-hand column names where each detail came from, because on this topic that is the part most roundups leave out. Several of these prices sit on a subpage rather than a homepage. Conference dates and rates change without notice, so confirm at the source before you book anything.
| Event | Circuit | Dates and location | Who it is built for | Published cost | Where we found it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CDS Midwinter Meeting | Clinical CE | Feb 25 to 27, 2027, McCormick Place West, Chicago | Clinical CE, broad attendance | Behind the registration flow | Future Midwinter Meeting Dates page |
| Women in DSO Empower and Grow | Group and DSO | Mar 3 to 5, 2027, ARIA Resort, Las Vegas, per the conference page | Women leaders across DSOs and group practices | DSO attendee $850, general attendee $1,200, plus fees, per the registration page | womenindso.org conference page and its registration page |
| ADSO Mid-Winter Technology Meeting | Technology | Held each March. The 2026 edition ran March 19 to 20 at the Wynn Las Vegas. No 2027 dates published yet. | DSO CEOs and select technology vendors, described as roughly 50 people, members only | Members only, not published | theadso.org events page |
| ADSO Summit | Group and DSO | Held each June. The 2026 edition ran June 15 to 17 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. No 2027 dates published yet. | DSO executives, members and non-members welcome | 2026 rates: ADSO DSO member $900, non-member DSO $1,300, ADSO industry partner member $1,400, non-member industry partner $2,000 | theadso.org Summit attendees page, not the events page |
| Dykema DSO Conference | Group and DSO | Jul 7 to 9, 2027, Gaylord Rockies, Denver | DSO leadership, with legal, accounting and growth tracks | DSO or dentist $999, industry partner $1,999, displayed without a year label while registration is closed | dykemaconference.com homepage and schedules page |
| AADOM Annual Conference | Practice management | Sep 9 to 11, 2027, Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, Scottsdale, AZ. The 2026 edition was Sep 3 to 5 in Orlando. | Dental office managers and administrators | 2027 rate schedule: member $1,199 and non-member $1,699 through March 31, 2027, then $1,399 and $1,799 from April 1 | aadomconference.com registration page, not the homepage |
| Dental Leadership Summit | Group and DSO | The 2026 edition was Sep 16 to 18 at Hyatt Regency Lost Pines, Cedar Creek, TX (Austin area). No 2027 dates published yet. | Group practice and DSO owners, with a discounted track for groups of one to four locations | 2026 rates: dentist or DSO executive $460, DSO staff $360, industry partner $935 | dentalleadershipsummit.com register page |
| DSO Tech Summit | Technology | The 2026 edition was Sep 23 to 24 in Nashville. The 2027 edition is set for Sep 29 to 30, 2027, also in Nashville. | DSO technology decision makers, with 2026 attendance capped at 75 and 18 sessions | Pricing page, headed 2026 registration: DSO $795, industry partner attendee $995. The homepage advertises 40% off 2027 DSO priority registration with a promo code and says industry partner registration will be released later | Pricing page, cross-checked against the homepage |
| ADA Scientific Session | Clinical CE | The 2026 edition ran Oct 8 to 10 at the Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis. The ADA has paused its annual meeting until further notice. | Broad clinical and CE audience, the ADA national annual meeting | No future meeting to price | ada.org future meetings page |
| Greater New York Dental Meeting | Clinical CE | Nov 27 to Dec 1, 2026, Javits Center, New York | Very large general audience, clinical CE plus a major exhibit floor | Attendee registration free through November 26, then $75 from November 27 | gnydm.com future meetings and general information pages |
Four of these have already run in September and October 2026: AADOM on September 3 to 5, the Dental Leadership Summit on September 16 to 18, the DSO Tech Summit on September 23 and 24, and the ADA Scientific Session on October 8 to 10. AADOM and the DSO Tech Summit have published their 2027 dates, the Dental Leadership Summit has not, and the ADA has paused its annual meeting. One more event came off the calendar entirely: ADSO cancelled its 2026 Next Level Conference and says it is putting that energy into its Annual Summit in 2027. Check the date on each row before you act on it, because once an edition has run, its entry is useful as a planning reference rather than as an open registration.
Note the cost column. Only seven of the ten publish an attendee price you can read without starting a registration flow, and even those tend to sit on a registration or attendees page rather than the homepage. The other two do not show a public dollar attendee rate in the sources listed, which is worth knowing before you plan a travel spend around them. The ADA’s annual meeting is paused.
What The Published Prices Tell You About The Room
The seven events that publish a rate share a pattern worth knowing: the number often sits somewhere other than the homepage. ADSO’s rates are on a separate attendees page, AADOM’s are behind an overview menu on a registration subpage, the Dental Leadership Summit’s and Women in DSO’s are on their registration pages, the DSO Tech Summit’s are on its pricing page rather than the homepage, and the Greater New York Dental Meeting’s are on its general information page. Dykema is the exception that puts its numbers up front. The information is public, just not always on the homepage.
Two traps are worth flagging. AADOM‘s 2027 rate schedule charges members $1,199 through March 31, 2027 and $1,399 from April 1, a $200 gap worth catching before an office manager waits on a budget approval. And the DSO Tech Summit’s pricing page is still headed “DSO Tech Summit 2026 Registration,” listing $795 for a DSO seat and $995 for an industry partner attendee, while its homepage advertises 40% off 2027 DSO priority registration with a promo code and says industry partner registration will come later. Confirm with the organizer which rate applies to the edition you are budgeting for.
The sharper signal is the gap between DSO and vendor seats. Every event here that lists a separate industry-partner rate charges more for that seat, by $200 at the 2026 DSO Tech Summit, $475 over the dentist or DSO executive seat at the 2026 Dental Leadership Summit, $500 at the ADSO Summit for members, and $1,000 at Dykema. In other words, suppliers pay more per seat than DSO attendees do. The 2026 DSO Tech Summit also published a 75-person attendance cap; confirm the next edition’s cap before using it to judge access.
If you are choosing between events on budget alone, the sticker price tells you the least of any number on the page.
The ADA Has Paused Its National Annual Meeting
The 2026 Scientific Session ran October 8 to 10 in Indianapolis. The ADA’s own future meetings page now says this about what comes next: “After careful consideration, the ADA has made the decision to pause its annual meeting, apart from the House of Delegates, until further notice.” It ties the decision to a bylaws change that no longer requires an annual scientific session and to an ongoing governance review. The House of Delegates still meets, with a session set for October 29 to November 1, 2027, in Denver.
So the ADA’s national meeting has no next date. Any plan that assumes an ADA national meeting next fall is assuming something the ADA has put on hold. For continuing education, the ADA directs readers to ADA.org/ce and recognizes the role state and local dental associations play.
Contrast that with the other end of the range. The Greater New York Dental Meeting publishes three years on one page, and the CDS Midwinter Meeting publishes four, running through February 2030. For a group that plans travel and staffing months ahead, that horizon is a practical advantage over an event that has been paused.
How To Verify An Event Before You Book Travel
Four checks, none of which take long, and all of which we had to run to build the table above.
Open the organizer’s own site, not a roundup. We found stale dates repeated across roundups in this category, and summaries built on top of those pages inherit the same errors.
Look for the year, not just the month and day. The Greater New York Dental Meeting homepage lists its dates with no year anywhere near them. A month and a day with no year attached is not a confirmed date.
Check the countdown timer and the copyright line. A countdown reading zero next to a live “register now” button is a quick sign the page may not have been updated since the event ended. The Voices of Dentistry site currently advertises January dates with a countdown at zero, while its schedule section further down the same page still shows an event from three years earlier.
Confirm the next occurrence exists before you plan around it. Recurring annually is a pattern, not a commitment. The ADA has paused its national meeting until further notice, while Dykema lists its July 2027 dates with registration still marked “Coming Soon.” Both are reasons to confirm at the source before a placeholder goes on next year’s budget.
Where The Technology Conversation Actually Happens
For a group running multiple locations, the reason to attend any of these is usually a decision already in front of you. A practice management system migration, an acquisition that has to be integrated, a security posture that has outgrown the setup that came with the first office.
Those are worth pressure-testing against people solving the same problem, which is what the smaller invitation-style events are structured to do. They are also decisions made long before and long after the conference. As Tom puts it, “Your DSO strategy dictates your PMS choice, not the other way around.” A vendor demo on an exhibit floor is a poor place to start that evaluation and a reasonable place to narrow one you have already scoped.
It helps to walk in with your current environment documented. Our IT checklist for dental practices covers what to have inventoried, and if the decision is a platform change, our breakdown of dental practice management software lays out how the major systems differ on multi-location operations. For groups weighing outside help, we also published what to look for in dental IT support companies.
If you are heading into one of these events with a migration or an acquisition already on the table, we are happy to compare notes on what to ask the vendors you will be meeting. That conversation tends to pay off more before the trip than after it.
Choosing The Right Events For Your Group
The useful filter is not which conference is biggest. It is which room contains the people who have already solved the problem you are working on.
For a single location, the practice management and clinical CE events carry the most value per dollar. For a group past a handful of locations, the DSO-specific events are where the operational and growth conversations happen, and the general roundups will not point you to them. For anyone evaluating systems across locations, a capped room buys more access than a large exhibit floor.
The harder question is not which event to attend. It is whether the decision waiting on the other side of it is one your group has actually scoped, or one you are hoping a conference will scope for you.
Dental Conference FAQs
Which conference makes sense for a group at five to fifteen locations?
That range is where the general dental meetings stop paying for themselves and the group events start. The clinical meetings still make sense for providers earning credit, but for the operator the value shifts to the smaller DSO rooms, where the agenda is growth, integration and centralized services rather than clinical technique. If budget forces one trip, send the operator to a group event and let clinical CE happen locally.
Is it worth attending if we are not ready to buy anything?
Usually yes, and it is often the better time to go. Walking an exhibit floor with an active RFP turns every conversation into a negotiation. Going a year early, while a migration or acquisition is still hypothetical, gets you honest answers about implementation timelines and what breaks at multi-location scale. The room does more for scoping a decision than for closing one.
How do we get value from an event nobody from our team attends?
Most of these organizations publish agendas well before the event. Reading the session list tells you what the operators in your segment are struggling with this year, which is worth knowing whether or not you go. For capped events, the agenda is often the only public artifact, so it is worth reading even when registration is closed to you.
How far in advance should a multi-location group book conference travel?
Far enough to matter for hotel blocks, which usually close well before the event. Dykema published its July 2027 dates almost a year out while keeping registration closed, so the date is often knowable long before you can act on it. Room blocks and early registration tiers are typically the first things to expire, routinely a month or more ahead of the event, and they rarely appear in third-party roundups at all.
Do dental conferences count for continuing education credit?
Clinical meetings such as the Greater New York Dental Meeting and the CDS Midwinter Meeting are built around CE programming, and credit is typically tied to the specific courses you attend rather than to attendance itself. Business and leadership events aimed at DSO executives are generally not structured around clinical CE credit. Confirm credit details in the organizer’s course catalog, since eligibility depends on the session and on your state licensing board.
