High Net Worth Networking Events Where wealthy entrepreneurs, investors and family offices actually meet.

Every week someone asks me some version of the same question: where do the serious people go? A founder who just crossed eight figures in revenue wants peers who understand payroll at that scale. A commercial real estate investor wants to meet the family office that actually writes the check, not the fourth intermediary in the chain. A broker wants owners, not other brokers. A newly liquid seller wants to know where people with similar net worth and similar problems spend their time — without walking into a room full of people trying to sell them something.

The honest answer is that wealthy people don't gather in one place. They gather in many small places that share a filter. Some filters are financial (a $20 million investable-asset minimum). Some are professional (you must be the top operator of a company of a certain size). Some are social (you must be invited by someone already inside). And some are simply design choices — a room built for conversation instead of a stage, a guest list built around people who own things and decide things.

I co-host The Dealmakers Roundup with Adrian Del Rio, and we built it because we kept running into the same gap in the Southeast: plenty of mixers, plenty of conferences, and very few rooms where a business owner, an investor, a developer and a capital partner could actually sit down and talk for twenty minutes without a panel interrupting or a vendor cornering them. This guide is everything we've learned about where high net worth people meet, how to evaluate an event before you spend an evening on it, and how to work a high-caliber room so it produces relationships instead of a pocket full of business cards.

It's long on purpose. Use the table of contents to jump to the question you came with — whether that's family office events in 2026, whether REIA meetings are still worth going to, how to get invited to invite-only business dinners, or what dealmaker networking events exist in Tennessee.

Where do wealthy people network?

Where do groups of millionaires and billionaires gather?

Millionaires and billionaires gather where three things are true at once: the room is curated, the conversation is private, and the time together is repeated. That's why you rarely meet a nine-figure family at a 600-person expo, and why you very often meet them in a twelve-person peer group, a board meeting for a hospital foundation, a private dinner, or a members-only club where the same faces show up month after month.

In practice, high net worth and ultra-high net worth people concentrate in a handful of environments:

• Vetted peer groups. Organizations like TIGER 21, YPO, EO and Vistage put members in small, confidential forums that meet on a regular schedule. Membership is screened by wealth, company size or role. This is where a lot of the most candid conversations among wealthy people happen — and those conversations stay in the room.
• Family office conferences and private investor forums. Events run by groups like Campden Wealth, Opal Group, Prestel & Partner, Markets Group, Institutional Investor and IMN draw single and multi-family offices, often admitting qualifying family offices complimentary while managers and service providers pay.
• Invite-only dinners and curated networking events. Smaller, host-driven gatherings — a dinner for twenty, a cocktail evening for a few hundred — where the guest list is the product. The Dealmakers Roundup sits in this category.
• Private social, city and country clubs. Long-standing city clubs, golf and country clubs, and newer members' clubs. Less transactional, more about proximity and familiarity over years.
• Philanthropy. Nonprofit boards, capital campaigns and charity galas. In many cities, the board of the children's hospital or the symphony is the most concentrated room of local wealth there is.
• Industry gatherings for owners. Commercial real estate associations, dealmaker groups for M&A and private equity, franchise owner councils, and trade groups where the attendees own the companies rather than work for them.
• Destination events. Investment retreats, private golf events, hunting and fishing trips, resort-based conferences. The travel itself is a filter.

Are there certain events or environments where you're more likely to meet successful or wealthy individuals?

Yes — and the pattern is predictable once you see it. You're more likely to meet successful people in environments where attending costs something that unserious people won't pay. That cost can be money (a $34,000 annual membership), qualification (proof of revenue, assets or role), time (a two-day retreat out of town), reputation (someone vouched for you) or effort (an application and an interview).

The flip side is equally predictable. Free, open, everyone-welcome events with a large promotional push tend to attract people who are early in their careers, people who are selling, and people who are looking for something. There's nothing wrong with any of those people — we were all early once — but if your goal is to meet owners, investors and decision-makers, you need rooms with a filter.

A few environments over-index on successful people almost everywhere:

1. Small rooms with a clear host. When a respected host personally invites or approves every attendee, the average quality goes up because the host's reputation is on the line.
2. Events organized around owning, not working. A gathering for "business owners with $5M+ in revenue" or "real estate investors and capital partners" will feel completely different from one for "anyone in business."
3. Events with a specific financial topic. Tax-free exits, Opportunity Zones, 1031 exchanges, cost segregation, succession planning, private credit. These topics mostly matter to people with significant taxable gains or assets, so they self-select a wealthier room. (Our December 9 Roundup in Alpharetta is themed Tax Free Exits & Increased Cash Flow for exactly that reason.)
4. Repeat gatherings. A series that meets quarterly or annually builds a core of returning attendees. Successful people value familiarity; they would rather see the same fifty excellent people four times than meet two hundred strangers once.
5. Distinctive venues. A private dining room, a historic building, a rooftop, a speakeasy. Interesting venues draw people who have plenty of options for how to spend an evening.

Where do high net worth clients hang out?

If you're a professional — a broker, banker, wealth advisor, attorney, CPA, builder — trying to meet high net worth clients, the most important shift is this: HNW clients don't hang out where professionals go looking for them. They hang out where they go to solve their own problems and enjoy their own lives. That means peer groups, boards, private clubs, their kids' schools and sports, their places of worship, their industry associations, and a small number of events they trust.

The professionals who build the best high net worth practices tend to do three things. They show up consistently in a few of those environments as a participant, not a salesperson. They become genuinely useful — the person who knows the right attorney, the right lender, the right buyer. And they host. Hosting is the single most underrated networking strategy, because the host controls the guest list and becomes the connective tissue of the room. It's a big part of why we started the Roundup in the first place.

Clubs, peer groups & memberships for high net worth individuals

Is there any club or association for high net worth individuals?

Yes — several, and they're built on very different filters. Some qualify you by investable assets, some by the company you run, and some by who you know. Picking the right one depends on what you want out of it: candid advice from peers with similar wealth, operating advice from peers running similar-sized companies, deal flow, or simply a social home.

Here's how the best-known options compare. Figures below come from each organization's published criteria or recent third-party comparisons; they change, so confirm directly before you apply.

Sources: TIGER 21 membership FAQ; YPO membership requirements; Long Angle's October 2026 comparison of peer communities. Always verify current criteria and fees with the organization.

What groups and memberships do the modern wealthy join to meet people?

The modern wealthy tend to stack memberships rather than pick one. A typical pattern for a successful business owner in their forties might look like this: a peer forum (YPO, EO or Vistage) for operating advice; an investor community (TIGER 21 or Long Angle) once liquidity arrives; a social club for family and entertaining; one or two nonprofit boards; an industry association; and a short list of curated events they return to every year because the room is consistently good.

What's changed in the last decade is the rise of the third and fourth categories over the traditional country club. Younger wealth — founders who exited a company, real estate investors who scaled a portfolio, operators who built a services business — often prefers communities organized around what they're doing next rather than where they golf. They want rooms where someone might have a deal, a capital partner, a buyer for their company or an introduction to a family office. That's the space curated dealmaker events fill.

A few trends worth knowing:

• Smaller is winning. Forums of eight to fifteen people, dinners of twelve to forty, evenings of a hundred to a few hundred — not thousands.
• Confidentiality is a feature. The best peer groups operate under explicit confidentiality rules. That's what allows candid conversation about money, family and failure.
• Investing communities have gone digital-first. Many investor networks now run online deal-sharing and discussion alongside in-person meetups, which makes the in-person events more valuable, not less.
• Regional rooms matter again. Wealth has migrated to growth markets across the Southeast and Sun Belt — Nashville, Middle Tennessee, Knoxville, metro Atlanta and beyond — and many of those markets have fewer established high-caliber rooms than New York or Los Angeles.

Are there family office clubs?

There are, though "family office club" can mean several things. TIGER 21 runs dedicated Family Office Groups at a higher dues level. Campden Wealth operates a members' club for families and family offices that feeds its forums. The Institute for Private Investors (IPI) runs member forums for wealthy families. Family Office Association-style groups, global family office communities and regional family office networks host private member meetings. And some multi-family offices run invitation-only gatherings for their client families.

Most of these are designed for the families and their office principals, not for service providers or fund managers. If you're on the capital-seeking side, you'll usually attend these as a paying sponsor or a vetted partner — or you'll meet family office principals in more mixed rooms where they're comfortable, like curated dealmaker events with a real estate and private-business focus.

Where do people with similar lifestyles and net worth meet?

People with similar net worth meet in rooms that screen for it — investor communities with asset minimums, peer forums with company-size thresholds, private clubs with sponsorship requirements — and in rooms organized around problems only people at that level have. A founder who just sold a company has more in common with another founder who sold than with anyone else at a general mixer. A real estate investor holding a dozen commercial properties wants to talk to others thinking about 1031 exchanges, cost segregation and refinancing, not to people buying their first rental.

That's why topic-driven events work so well. When an evening is built around tax-free exits, increasing cash flow from a business or portfolio, Opportunity Zone investing, or raising capital for a project, the people who show up are mostly the people for whom those questions carry real dollars.

Where do you meet like-minded people?

Like-minded people meet where shared ambition is the price of admission. For entrepreneurs, that's founder forums, owner peer groups, mastermind groups and dealmaker events. For investors, it's investor communities, real estate associations and private investment clubs. For people who want both, it's mixed rooms — events that deliberately put operators, investors and capital partners together so each group meets the others.

The single best predictor of whether you'll find like-minded people at an event is who the host is and who the host invites. Look at past guest lists, past venues and the people the host associates with publicly. If those people look like the people you want to meet, you're probably in the right place.

Family office events, conferences & how to get invited

How wealthy do you need to be for a family office?

It depends on which kind of family office you mean. A single family office (SFO) — a dedicated team serving one family — generally starts to make sense somewhere around $100 million in investable wealth, and many advisors suggest closer to $250 million before a full in-house team pays for itself. The reason is cost: a properly staffed SFO commonly runs $1 million or more a year once you add a chief investment officer, finance and operations staff, technology, legal and audit.

A multi-family office (MFO) spreads those costs across many families and is commonly realistic from roughly $25 million, with some MFOs offering scaled services lower than that. Below that level, most families work with a private wealth advisor, private bank or registered investment advisor rather than a family office.

If you're asking because you want to meet family offices, the more useful number is this: the family offices you'll encounter at real estate and private-business events are typically investing tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars and are looking for direct deals, co-investments and trusted operators — not just funds.

Which family office conferences or events are worth attending?

The family office events worth attending are the ones where the families or their principals actually show up, and where the format allows real conversation. The most established organizers include:

• Campden Wealth — family office forums and congresses in North America, Europe and the Middle East, plus IPI forums in the U.S., with a members' club that feeds attendance.
• Opal Group — Family Office & Private Wealth Management Forum and related summits, historically in destinations like Newport, Rhode Island and the Hamptons.
• Prestel & Partner — single family office forums in London, Frankfurt, Zurich and New York with strict qualification for complimentary family office admission.
• Markets Group — Private Wealth retreats in the U.S. and Latin America where qualified investors may attend complimentary and managers pay.
• Institutional Investor — East Coast and West Coast Family Office Wealth Conferences.
• IMN — Real Estate Family Office & Private Wealth events, which are particularly relevant if your world is commercial real estate.
• DC Finance — city-based Family Office & High Net Worth Conferences across the U.S. and Canada.
• Family Business Magazine — events focused on family enterprise, governance and transitions.

Whether a given event is worth it depends on which side of the table you're on. If you're a qualifying family office, many of these are complimentary and excellent for education and peer exchange. If you're a fund manager, sponsor or service provider, they can be expensive — sponsorships and registrations add up quickly — and the return depends heavily on how much private meeting time the format provides.

What family office events are happening in 2026?

The 2026 family office calendar is busy, and a large share of it falls in the fourth quarter. Based on published 2026 calendars, events still ahead as of this update include:

Compiled from published 2026 family office event calendars (FINTRX, Dakota). Dates and formats change — confirm with each organizer before booking travel.

Earlier in 2026 the calendar included DC Finance conferences in Houston, Dallas, Toronto and Chicago; Institutional Investor's East Coast (Fort Lauderdale) and West Coast (Laguna Beach) Family Office Wealth Conferences; Campden's Family Alternative Investment Forum in San Francisco and Family Investment Forum in Switzerland; and Opal Group's Newport and Water Mill forums. Most of these recur annually, so they're a reasonable guide to the 2027 calendar as well.

One honest observation: most of the big family office conferences are concentrated in New York, Florida, California, Texas and Europe. If you're in Tennessee, Georgia or the Carolinas, the family offices in your own backyard are often easier to meet at a regional, curated event than by flying to a 500-person forum where they're surrounded by fund managers.

How do you get invited to family office events?

There are four realistic paths, and they depend on who you are:

1. Qualify as a family office. If you are a single family office or a principal of one, most organizers will admit you complimentary after a qualification check. Some set explicit thresholds — Prestel & Partner, for example, has cited assets of £150 million or more for complimentary admission at certain forums.
2. Join the community that feeds the event. Many family office events are member-driven — Campden Wealth's club, IPI, global family office communities. Membership is the invitation.
3. Pay to participate as a vetted partner. Fund managers, sponsors and service providers generally pay registration or sponsorship fees and are admitted in limited numbers. This can work, but only if you prepare meetings in advance.
4. Get introduced by someone already inside. This is the most powerful path and the least discussed. A warm introduction from a trusted attorney, CPA, banker, broker or fellow investor gets you into private dinners and side meetings that never appear on a public agenda.

The fourth path is why mixed, curated rooms matter so much. When family office principals, operators and real estate investors are in the same relaxed setting, introductions happen naturally — and the next private dinner invitation usually comes from one of those conversations.

How to network with the wealthy

How do I network with the wealthy?

You network with wealthy people the same way wealthy people network with each other: slowly, specifically and with something to offer. The mistake most people make is treating it as a numbers game — more events, more cards, more LinkedIn requests. High net worth people are approached constantly. What gets their attention is relevance, competence and restraint.

Here's the approach that works, in order:

1. Know exactly what you bring to the table

Before you walk into any room, be able to say in one sentence what you do, who you do it for and what's interesting about it right now. "I own three HVAC companies in Middle Tennessee and I'm looking at a fourth." "I develop small-bay industrial in the Knoxville area." "I run a family office that co-invests in commercial real estate." Wealthy people sort quickly; give them something real to sort.

2. Be in the rooms where they already are

You can't network with wealthy people from the outside. Use the categories in this guide — peer groups, family office events, curated dealmaker evenings, boards, clubs, industry associations — and pick two or three you can commit to for a year. Consistency beats volume. The second and third time someone sees you in a good room, you stop being a stranger.

3. Lead with curiosity, not a pitch

Ask what they're working on, what's hard right now, what they're excited about. Listen for problems you can actually help with — and problems someone else you know can help with. The fastest way to earn trust with a busy, successful person is to make a useful introduction that has nothing to do with you.

4. Give before you ask

Send the article, the contact, the lender, the deal that isn't right for you but might be for them. Generosity compounds in high-trust networks because people talk. If you become known as someone who adds value, invitations follow.

5. Follow up like a professional

Within 48 hours, send a short note that references something specific from the conversation and offers one concrete next step — coffee, a call, an introduction. Then follow through. Most people don't, which is exactly why doing it sets you apart.

6. Play the long game

Real relationships with wealthy people take months or years. The founder you meet this December may not need a capital partner until 2028. The family office principal may not invest in your project, but may introduce you to the one who does. Treat every relationship as permanent and every conversation as the start of a longer one.

How do I actually surround myself with rich people?

Start by reframing the goal. The people worth surrounding yourself with aren't simply rich — they're builders: people who have created companies, portfolios and capital through skill and persistence. Being around them changes your sense of what's possible, sharpens your judgment and accelerates your opportunities. Here's how to actually do it:

• Join one serious peer group you qualify for today — EO if you own a $1M+ revenue business, Vistage if you want a CEO advisory board, an investor community if you have the assets. Show up every time.
• Attend one curated dealmaker event per quarter where operators, investors and capital partners mix. Go back to the same series so people start to recognize you.
• Volunteer for one nonprofit you genuinely care about, and do real work on a committee. Board seats follow effort.
• Get involved in your industry association at the committee or leadership level, not just as an attendee.
• Host something. A small dinner for eight, a quarterly breakfast, a podcast, a deal-review session. Hosting puts you at the center of the network instead of the edge of it.
• Raise your own game. Successful people are drawn to people who are going somewhere. Build the business, close the deal, write the thing, buy the property. Progress is magnetic.

And be patient with yourself. It's normal to feel out of place the first few times you're in a room where everyone seems further along. Almost every successful person in that room felt the same way once. The ones who kept showing up are the ones you're now meeting.

How to find good networking events

Where can I find networking events?

Networking events are everywhere; good ones are harder to find because the best are rarely advertised widely. Here's where to look, from most open to most private:

1. Event platforms. Luma, Eventbrite, Meetup and LinkedIn Events list thousands of business events. Luma in particular has become the platform of choice for curated, host-approved gatherings — many invite-only events use it to manage invitation requests. (The Dealmakers Roundup confirms invitations through Luma.)
2. Chambers of commerce and economic development groups. Good for local business owners and civic leaders; quality varies by city and event.
3. Industry associations. CCIM, NAIOP, ULI, ICSC, SIOR, CREW and BOMA for commercial real estate; ACG for M&A and private equity; trade associations for specific industries.
4. Coworking and innovation spaces. Operators like Thrive Coworking host member events and partner gatherings — and the members are often founders and small-business owners.
5. Local business journals and city magazines. Event calendars, awards dinners and "power lists" tell you who's hosting what.
6. Podcasts, newsletters and LinkedIn creators in your niche. Many hosts run live events for their audiences; those audiences are already filtered by interest.
7. Your own network. Ask the three most connected people you know which events they actually go to. The answer is usually a short list that never shows up in a search.

How do I find good networking events — and how do I evaluate the quality?

Use a simple scorecard before you commit an evening. We built the Roundup around these same criteria, because they're what we wanted as attendees:

Before you RSVP, spend ten minutes on three checks. Look at who's hosting and search their name — do they own businesses, invest, or broker real deals? Look at past events — venues, photos, featured guests. Ask someone who's been. One sentence from a past attendee ("best room I've been in this year" vs. "a lot of people selling insurance") tells you more than any event description.

You can apply that test to the Roundup right now: the hosts are listed by name, the previous events page shows the Knoxville and Murfreesboro rooms with recaps, and the format — no hard pitches, just real conversations — is stated up front.

Are networking events worth it?

Is going to networking events worth it?

Good networking events are absolutely worth it. Bad ones are a tax on your evening. The difference comes down to three things you control — which rooms you pick, how you show up and whether you follow up — and one you don't: the quality of the host.

Think about the economics. If you're an owner, investor or professional whose business runs on relationships, one great relationship can be worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over time: a capital partner for your next project, a buyer for your business, a referral source that sends you three clients a year, a lender who closes when others won't. Measured against that, a four-hour evening is cheap — if the room gives you a real chance of meeting that person.

Networking events are worth it when:

• The room has a real filter and a clearly defined audience you want to meet.
• The format gives you uninterrupted time to talk.
• You go with a clear intention — who you want to meet and why.
• You follow up within 48 hours and keep the relationship alive afterward.
• You go back to the same good rooms repeatedly.

They're not worth it when you're collecting cards at open-door mixers, standing through hours of panels, or showing up once and never following up. Most people who say "networking doesn't work" are describing that second experience.

Are entrepreneur or founder meetups worth it?

Founder meetups are worth it in proportion to how closely the room matches your stage. An early-stage founder can get a lot out of open startup meetups — feedback, co-founders, early hires. A founder running a $5 million, $20 million or $50 million company typically gets far more from a smaller room of owners at a similar scale, where conversations turn to hiring leadership, buying competitors, real estate for the business, tax planning and eventual exit.

The most valuable founder rooms also include the people founders eventually need: investors, lenders, real estate partners, M&A advisors, family offices. That mix is deliberate at the Roundup — business owners and operators in the same room as investors and capital partners — because the most interesting conversations happen between those groups, not just within them.

How effective are networking events for lead generation?

Networking events are excellent for relationship generation and mediocre for transactional lead generation — and the people who understand that distinction get the most out of them. If you go in trying to "close" people over cocktails, you'll repel exactly the people you want to meet. If you go in trying to meet five people you'd genuinely like to know better, the leads tend to come later, through follow-up, referrals and repeat encounters.

In my experience the effectiveness curve looks like this:

• First event: introductions, a few great conversations, maybe one follow-up meeting.
• Second and third events: recognition, deeper conversations, the first referrals and introductions in both directions.
• Six months to a year in: real opportunities — co-investments, clients, partnerships, deals — that trace back to people you met and kept up with.

For professionals whose clients are high net worth (brokers, lenders, wealth advisors, CPAs, attorneys, builders), a curated room is often the most efficient channel available, precisely because the audience has been filtered before you arrive. The key metric isn't cards collected; it's quality conversations per hour and follow-up meetings booked.

What networking events do you recommend for building meaningful connections?

For meaningful connections, I recommend a deliberate mix across three tiers:

1. One recurring peer group you qualify for — EO, YPO, Vistage, TIGER 21 or an investor community — for depth and candor.
2. One or two curated, invitation-only events per quarter that mix operators, investors and capital partners in a conversational format. In the Southeast, that's exactly what The Dealmakers Roundup is designed to be: hosted by Carson Jones and Adrian Del Rio, held in distinctive venues in growth markets, with no hard pitches.
3. One industry association where you take on a real role — a committee, a program, a board seat — so you're known for contribution, not attendance.

Add one or two destination events a year if your business warrants it — a family office forum, a national CRE conference, an investor retreat — and you'll have a network that's both deep and broad within twelve to eighteen months.

Real estate & commercial real estate networking

Real estate is a relationship business wearing a spreadsheet. Deals get done because a broker knows an owner who's quietly thinking about selling, because an investor trusts an operator, because a lender has closed with a sponsor before, because a family office has seen a developer deliver. That's why real estate networking — done well — remains one of the highest-return activities in the industry.

Are real estate networking events worth it?

Real estate networking events are worth it when the room contains principals — owners, investors, developers, lenders and capital partners — and not just service providers marketing to each other. The classic failure mode is a "real estate networking" night that turns out to be eighty agents, forty lenders, twenty contractors and three actual investors. Everyone is there to find the same three people.

To tell the difference quickly, ask: who owns real estate in this room, and who's deploying capital? If the answer is "a lot of people," go. If the answer is "the speaker," you're at a sales event.

How do I meet real estate investors?

Real estate investors are easiest to meet in five places:

1. Curated investor and dealmaker events where attendance is reviewed and the room is built around investors and capital partners.
2. Commercial real estate associations — CCIM, NAIOP, ULI, ICSC, SIOR, CREW — especially at the local chapter level, where the same owners and developers show up every month.
3. Local investor clubs and REIAs for residential and small multifamily investors.
4. Tax- and structure-focused gatherings on 1031 exchanges, Opportunity Zones, cost segregation and self-directed retirement investing — topics that mostly matter to people who already own property or have gains to defer.
5. Through deals themselves. Bring a good opportunity to the table and investors find you. Nothing builds a real estate network faster than a well-underwritten deal.

When you meet them, talk about what they invest in, how they like to structure deals, what markets they're watching and what they're struggling with right now — financing, insurance, construction costs, tenant demand. Investors remember the person who asked good questions and followed up with something useful.

Where can I go to meet and network with CRE owners and brokers?

Commercial real estate owners and brokers concentrate in:

• CCIM Institute chapters — strong in Tennessee and across the Southeast; a deep bench of brokers, owners and investment advisors.
• NAIOP — commercial developers and industrial/office owners.
• ULI (Urban Land Institute) — developers, public officials, architects, capital providers; excellent for mixed-use and redevelopment.
• ICSC — retail and mixed-use owners, tenants and brokers.
• SIOR — senior industrial and office brokers.
• CREW — commercial real estate professionals with a strong mentorship culture.
• BOMA — office and building owners and managers.
• Curated cross-industry rooms — events like the Roundup where CRE owners and brokers meet business owners (future tenants, buyers and sellers of operating businesses with real estate), family offices and capital partners. That cross-pollination is where many off-market deals start.

A practical tip for brokers: owners respond to brokers who bring market knowledge and leave the pitch at home. Come with something useful — a recent comp, a read on cap rates in their submarket, a lender who's actively quoting their asset type — and you'll be remembered for the right reason.

Where do you network with other real estate professionals?

For real estate professionals — agents, brokers, lenders, attorneys, appraisers, property managers, contractors — the best networking usually happens in two directions at once. Laterally, through associations and brokerage communities, you build referral relationships with peers in other markets and specialties. Vertically, through curated events with owners, investors and capital partners, you meet the clients who drive the business.

Most professionals over-invest in lateral networking because it's comfortable. Shift some of that time to rooms where principals gather, and treat the professionals you meet there as collaborators — the lender, the CPA, the cost segregation specialist, the builder — who can help you serve those principals better.

Are REIA meetings worth going to anymore?

REIA (Real Estate Investors Association) meetings can still be worth going to, especially if you're early in your investing career or focused on residential and small multifamily. Good chapters offer education, local market insight, and access to wholesalers, lenders, contractors and property managers. They're one of the better places to learn the mechanics of investing in your city.

The common frustrations are also real: some meetings have become platforms for paid coaching upsells, the audience skews toward beginners, and experienced investors stop attending once they've built their teams. If you're a seasoned investor, a commercial investor, or someone looking for capital partners and larger deals, you'll typically get more from CRE associations and curated dealmaker rooms.

A fair way to decide: attend two meetings. If the speakers are practitioners sharing real numbers and the room includes people who've done more deals than you, keep going. If the evening ends with a pitch for a $20,000 program, you have your answer.

What are the best commercial real estate networking events?

The best commercial real estate networking events combine three things: principals in the room, a conversation-first format and a market focus. Nationally, the large conferences from ICSC, NAIOP, ULI and CCIM are worthwhile for scale and market intelligence. Regionally and locally, the most valuable events are often smaller: chapter programs, private owner dinners and curated dealmaker evenings where you can actually spend time with the people you meet.

The Dealmakers Roundup was built by people in commercial real estate — I'm a commercial real estate advisor and Adrian Del Rio works across entrepreneurship and CRE — so real estate is a natural thread of every Roundup. But we deliberately mix the room with business owners, operators, family offices and capital partners, because real estate deals rarely come only from other real estate people.

Invite-only business events & private dinner clubs

What are invite-only business events, and why do they work?

Invite-only business events are gatherings where every attendee is personally invited or approved by the host. They work for a simple reason: the guest list is the product. When a host is accountable for who's in the room, they keep out the people who would degrade it — the aggressive sellers, the tire-kickers, the people who are only there for a free drink — and they invite people who will make each other's evenings better.

The best invite-only events share a few traits:

• A clear point of view about who belongs: owners and investors, for example, rather than "anyone in business."
• A request-and-approve process rather than a public ticket sale — often run through a platform like Luma.
• Limited seats, so the room stays conversational.
• A host who introduces people, rather than just opening the doors.
• No hard selling. The moment one attendee starts pitching the room, the trust that makes invite-only events valuable starts to evaporate.

"Invite-only" doesn't mean impossible to get into. Most curated events — including the Roundup — accept invitation requests. The hosts review who's asking and confirm seats. If you're a business owner, investor, family office or capital partner with something real going on, the door is usually open.

What's the best private, invite-only business dinner club for entrepreneurs near me?

The best private dinner club for entrepreneurs is the one whose other members are where you want to be in three years. Formats vary widely — monthly dinners for a fixed group of ten, rotating dinners hosted by different members, quarterly host-curated dinners, or a dinner component attached to a larger peer group. When you evaluate one near you, ask:

• Who hosts, and who has attended recently?
• How are members or guests selected?
• Is there a confidentiality expectation?
• Is the dinner built for conversation — seating, size, pacing — or is it a presentation with food?
• What does it cost, and who's paying? (If a sponsor is paying for everything, find out what they expect in return.)

In many Southeast markets, formal entrepreneur dinner clubs are thin on the ground or closed to new members. That's one of the reasons curated evenings like the Roundup exist: they deliver the curated-guest-list benefit of a private dinner club with a larger, more varied room — business owners, investors, developers and capital partners — and without an annual membership.

What is a private dinner club for entrepreneurs, and is it worth joining?

A private dinner club for entrepreneurs is a small, recurring group of founders and owners who meet over a meal to share what's working, what isn't and what they need. The good ones function like an informal board of advisors. They're worth joining if the members are at or above your stage, the meetings are consistent and the culture is candid. They're not worth joining if they're disguised sales funnels — a "free dinner" where a financial product or coaching program is presented between courses.

If you can't find one you like, start one. Invite six to ten people you respect, pick a good restaurant with a private room, set a simple rule (no pitching, everything shared stays at the table) and meet quarterly. Within a year you'll be the host of one of the most valuable rooms in your network.

Are private clubs worth it for networking?

Private city clubs, country clubs and members' clubs can be excellent for long-term relationship building, especially in established markets where business and social life overlap. Their strength is repetition and proximity — you see the same people at dinners, events and on the golf course for years. Their weakness is speed and specificity — they're not designed to put you in front of a capital partner next month. Treat a private club as a long-term social foundation and pair it with curated, deal-oriented events for the business side.

High-end events, charity galas & where wealthy families spend their weekends

What are high-end events?

"High-end events" usually means gatherings with a premium venue, a curated or expensive ticket, and an audience with significant wealth or influence. In practice they fall into a few families:

• Charity galas and benefit dinners — black-tie or cocktail-attire fundraisers for hospitals, arts organizations, universities and foundations.
• Private investment forums and family office conferences — often at resorts or destination venues.
• Invite-only business evenings — host-curated nights for owners, investors and capital partners in distinctive venues.
• Luxury and lifestyle events — auctions, art fairs, concours car shows, wine dinners, polo and equestrian events, golf invitationals.
• Member events at private clubs and within peer organizations.

What separates a genuinely high-end event from a merely expensive one isn't the champagne. It's the quality of the people and the conversations. A beautiful venue with the wrong guest list is just a nice party.

What are some upcoming charity galas in my city — and how do I find charity galas near me?

Charity gala calendars are local and seasonal, so the best approach is to know where to look:

1. Community foundation and United Way calendars in your city often list major fundraising events.
2. Children's hospitals, symphonies, art museums, botanical gardens, ballet and opera companies nearly all hold an annual signature gala — check their websites' "events" or "support us" pages.
3. Local business journals and city or society magazines publish philanthropy calendars and event photography; last year's photos tell you who attends.
4. Your own network. Ask friends who serve on nonprofit boards which events they support; most boards are always looking for table hosts.

Every market has its flagship nights — in Nashville, for example, the Swan Ball supporting Cheekwood has long been one of the region's signature social events. Peak gala seasons in most Southern cities run from late September through early December and again in the spring.

A practical note: galas are excellent for visibility and community, but they're loud, scheduled and short on conversation time. The networking value usually comes from getting involved with the organization beforehand — joining a host committee, sponsoring a table, serving on a board — so the gala becomes a reunion rather than a room of strangers.

Where can I find events for wealthy families near me this weekend?

For this weekend specifically, check your city's community foundation and arts calendars, the event pages of local private clubs and country clubs (many host member-guest events), museum and symphony calendars, and Luma or Eventbrite listings filtered by "private," "invitation" or "gala." Weekend events for wealthy families tend to be philanthropic, cultural or sporting — a benefit dinner, a museum opening, a golf or tennis tournament, a school fundraiser — rather than explicitly "networking."

If your goal is business — meeting business owners, investors and family offices to explore deals — weekday evening events are usually better. That's when owners and investors are in business mode, and why the Roundup runs on a weekday evening (our December event is a Wednesday, 5:00–9:00 PM Eastern).

Dealmaker networking events in Tennessee & the Southeast

What dealmaker networking events are there in Tennessee?

Tennessee has no shortage of business events — chambers, CRE association chapters, startup meetups, investor clubs — but very few that are curated specifically for dealmakers: the owners, investors, developers, operators and capital partners who actually put transactions together. The Dealmakers Roundup was created to fill that gap, and Tennessee is where it started.

Beyond the Roundup, Tennessee dealmakers should know the state's CCIM, NAIOP and ULI chapters (strong in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis), the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) chapters for M&A and private equity, EO and YPO chapters for owners, and the growing number of investor communities in Middle Tennessee. Each serves a slice of the market; the Roundup is designed to be the room where those slices meet.

Where are networking events for business owners near me?

If you're in Middle Tennessee, East Tennessee, Northeast Tennessee or metro Atlanta, the Roundup is built for you. We take the Roundup to growth markets — places where business, real estate and capital are moving and where relationships still matter — and each event is announced on dealmaker.events and through Luma. Outside those markets, start with your local EO or Vistage chapter, your chamber's business-owner programming, and the industry association for your sector, then use the scorecard in Section 05 to filter.

Why the Southeast? Because a lot of new wealth has been created or relocated here: founders building service and industrial businesses, real estate investors scaling portfolios, families relocating from higher-cost states, and capital following them. Many of these markets have grown faster than their high-caliber networking infrastructure. A business owner in Murfreesboro or Alpharetta shouldn't need to fly to New York to meet a family office.

Inside The Dealmakers Roundup

Everything above describes the landscape. This section describes the room we built in response to it.

What it is

The Dealmakers Roundup is a curated, invitation-only networking series that brings together business owners, real estate investors, operators, family offices, developers and capital partners in growth markets. It's hosted by Carson Jones and Adrian Del Rio, and it's intentionally built around conversation — not stage time — so the people in the room can actually meet each other.

The format

No hard pitches. Just real conversations with serious entrepreneurs. That's not a tagline; it's the operating rule. There's no vendor gauntlet. A Roundup evening runs about four hours in a distinctive venue, with plenty of open time for introductions that can turn into deals. Each event has a theme that gives conversations a starting point — the December 9 Roundup is built around Tax Free Exits & Increased Cash Flow, a topic that matters to business owners planning a sale and investors looking to keep more of what they earn.

Who's in the room

• Entrepreneurs and business owners — including service-business owners, founders and operators with something real to build.
• Real estate investors and developers — commercial and multifamily owners, redevelopment and industrial players.
• Family offices and capital partners — people actively deploying equity and debt.
• Trusted advisors — the tax, legal, lending and construction professionals dealmakers rely on, in proportion to the room.

Past featured guests have included John Vachon, an Opportunity Zones expert, and Eddie Austin of BEX and JE Capital, alongside the hosts.

Where we've been

The first Roundup filled Five on Black in downtown Murfreesboro, Tennessee on April 23, 2026. The second took over The Vault on Gay Street in Knoxville on September 10, 2026 — a speakeasy inside a historic bank vault, distinctive and intimate. You can watch the Knoxville recap and see both rooms on the Previous Events page.

Where we're going next

The next Roundup is Wednesday, December 9, 2026, 5:00–9:00 PM Eastern at Thrive, 44 Milton Ave, Alpharetta, Georgia. Thrive Coworking — flexible coworking, private offices, meeting rooms and event space across 15 locations in five states — is the current sponsor and venue host. Learn about Thrive.

How to get an invitation

Request an invitation through Luma. The hosts review requests, and seats are confirmed through Luma. Seats are limited by design — the room needs to stay conversational. If you're a business owner, investor, family office or capital partner, tell us briefly what you're working on when you request; it helps us make the right introductions on the night.

Why it's built this way

Adrian and I built the Roundup as the event we wanted to attend. As people working across entrepreneurship, commercial real estate, investment advisory and capital, we kept finding ourselves at events that were either too broad (everyone welcome, nobody you need) or too narrow (one industry talking to itself). The deals we cared about came from mixed rooms — an owner meeting an investor, a developer meeting a family office, a seller meeting the advisor who saves them seven figures in taxes. The Roundup is a deliberate attempt to manufacture more of those rooms.

It's also why I describe my own role as more than a host or a broker. Through my work with Passive Investments and the Carson's Corner podcast, I operate as a principal alongside equity and capital partners — so when a good opportunity surfaces at a Roundup, it can find capital, not just a listing.

Sponsoring a Roundup

Sponsors put their brand in front of a curated room of serious entrepreneurs, investors and dealmakers. Each Roundup carries a small number of aligned sponsors, so the room never turns into a sales floor. If your firm serves business owners and investors and you'd like to be part of a future Roundup, see the sponsorship page.

How to work a high-caliber room

Getting into a great room is half the job. Here's how to make the evening count — before, during and after.

Before the event

• Set one goal. "Meet two family offices that invest in industrial." "Find a lender for a $4M redevelopment." "Meet three business owners thinking about an exit in the next three years." One clear goal beats a vague hope.
• Research the hosts and featured guests. Know who they are and what they care about. It's easier to start a conversation with someone you've read about.
• Prepare your one-sentence answer to "What are you working on?" Make it specific and current.
• Prepare one useful thing to give — a market insight, a contact, a resource — so you can lead with value.
• Ask the host for an introduction. At curated events, hosts want to connect the right people. Tell them who you'd like to meet.

During the event

• Arrive early. The first hour is the easiest time to meet people — groups haven't formed yet and everyone is looking for a conversation.
• Ask better questions. "What's the most interesting thing you're working on?" "What's harder this year than last year?" "What kind of deals are you looking for?"
• Go deep, not wide. Five twenty-minute conversations beat thirty two-minute ones.
• Introduce people to each other. Being a connector in the room makes you memorable and makes the room better.
• Don't pitch. If someone is interested in what you do, they'll ask. Then answer briefly and suggest a follow-up.
• Take a note right after each good conversation — name, what they're working on, what you promised. Your phone's notes app is fine.
• Moderate the drinks. Dealmakers notice who stays sharp.

After the event

• Follow up within 48 hours with a short, specific message: what you talked about, one next step, and anything you promised to send.
• Deliver what you promised. The introduction, the article, the contact. Immediately.
• Book the coffee or call. Relationships are built in the meetings after the event, not at the event itself.
• Connect on LinkedIn with a personalized note, not a blank request.
• Keep a simple relationship log. A spreadsheet or CRM with who you met, where, what they're working on and when you last spoke.
• Come back to the next one. Repeat attendance is where networking compounds.

Three attendee scenarios

What does one good relationship from one good room actually look like? These three scenarios are illustrative composites — not real attendees — with rounded numbers, meant to show the math behind why serious people make time for curated events. Nothing here is tax, legal or investment advice.

Eight costly networking mistakes

These are the mistakes we see most often in high-caliber rooms — and the ones that quietly cost people the relationships they came for.

Keep exploring

Written by Carson Jones, co-host of The Dealmakers Roundup and host of the Carson's Corner podcast. Carson is a commercial real estate advisor with eXp Commercial and the founder of Passive Investments, where he works as a principal alongside equity and capital partners. Questions about this guide or the Roundup: [email protected].

Sources for organization criteria and event dates: TIGER 21 membership FAQ, YPO membership requirements, Long Angle peer-community comparison, FINTRX 2026 family office calendar, Dakota allocator events calendar, Asora on single vs. multi-family offices, SEC accredited investor definition.