When we started building RetailClub, one of the things we kept coming back to was a simple but uncomfortable question: why do leaders leave industry events feeling better about their AI strategy than they should?
The answer, we think, is that most events aren’t designed to challenge you. They’re designed to validate you. AI gets a track. A keynote. A few sponsored sessions. You hear some case studies, collect a few business cards, and fly home feeling like you’ve got your hand on the wheel.
You don’t. And the gap between what most leaders think they know and what’s actually coming is widening faster than any conference has been designed to handle.
RetailClub AI Festival is built to close that gap. And this September, we’re bringing in a partner who shares that conviction.
Retail AI Council has built a community focused on the kind of honest, practitioner-led conversations that retail leaders actually need — the ones that go beyond surface-level AI discussion and into the harder questions about what to actually do.
Together, we’re creating two new experiences inside the festival: the Retail AI Council Beach House and the Retail Insiders Party.
Where the Hard Questions Actually Get Asked
The Retail AI Council Beach House is a high-touch, invite-only experience within RetailClub AI Festival. At its core are “Council Collab IRL” sessions: in-person collaborative roundtables where retail leaders share real-world AI wins, pressure-test ideas, and dig into the practical questions around adoption and organizational change.
Not a summary deck. Not a recording. A conversation with the people actually doing the work.
The executives who were skeptical in 2023 aren’t skeptical anymore. What they are is overwhelmed. They know the stakes. They just haven’t found the right conversation yet. The Beach House is one more place inside RetailClub AI Festival where that conversation can happen.
An Evening Where the Masks Come Off
The Retail Insiders Party is where the day’s conversations continue after the program ends. Hosted at The Bungalow, one of the most iconic beachside settings in Huntington Beach, it’s an invite-only evening for senior retail executives to unwind and connect.
One of the things we’ve learned building RetailClub is that the physical environment isn’t a detail. It’s a precondition for the quality of conversation. Put people in a dark convention center and they operate like they’re in a dark convention center. Put them outside, at a beach, with people they actually want to talk to, and something different happens.
The masks come off. People get honest.
That’s what we’re building.
What’s Ahead
RetailClub AI Festival takes place September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. The Retail AI Council Beach House and the Retail Insiders Party are invite-only. Space is limited, and attendance is subject to approval.
If you want to learn more about the Beach House, you can find details here.
If you’re interested in attending the Retail Insiders Party, click here.
We’ll see you in September.
Author
Caroline Farley
Co-Founder & Co-CEO, RetailClub
Caroline Farley is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of RetailClub, the only retail event built on the conviction that AI isn’t just transforming the industry — it’s reshaping the economy, society, and culture that underpin it. She was previously Chief Growth Officer of Shoptalk, where she helped build one of the most recognized events in retail.
Disclaimer: This article was written by me … with the help of AI. If we’re building an event about how AI is transforming retail, we’d be hypocrites not to use it ourselves.
