Your First-Timer Guide to the C3 Tech Summit

If this is your first C3 Tech Summit, welcome. The day can feel like a lot at first glance: more than 30 sessions, over 30 speakers, 60-plus sponsors, and a hall full of technology you may not have evaluated yet. The good news is that the day has a shape, and a little orientation goes a long way.

Below is the practical version. What the event actually is, how to pick your sessions, how to use the supplier hall without getting overwhelmed, and what to plan for around the logistics.

What is the C3 Tech Summit?

The C3 Tech Summit is a one-day gathering at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 10, 2026, that brings together Midwest technology and business leaders to work through decisions that will define their next phase of growth. C3 Technology Advisors organizes the event. C3 is a Michigan-based consulting firm working with over 400 technology providers and more than 1,000 clients.

The C3 Tech Summit is free to attend, contingent on approval by the C3 team. C3 curates the room for senior decision-makers across CIO, CISO, CTO, VP, and Director levels. Sessions focus on content, and the no-sales-pitch standard is the reason the event has grown each year since it started, with 2026 marking the ninth annual.

Should you attend if you're new to C3 Technology Advisors?

If you're new to the C3 Tech Summit and to C3 itself, you are not at a disadvantage. The event was built for people working through real technology decisions, no matter whether they've worked with C3 before. Most first-time attendees walk out with a clearer view of the marketplace and a short list of vendors worth a second meeting.

C3's day job is helping enterprise leaders work through the full technology lifecycle, from identification through implementation, across cloud, cybersecurity, network, customer experience, MSP, and AI practice areas. The C3 Tech Summit is one of the few public moments where the firm pulls the whole ecosystem together in one room. That's worth experiencing before you decide whether the consulting relationship is right for you.

How does the day flow?

The agenda runs in chronological waves, with intentional gaps for connection. A simplified version:

• 8:00 AM: Check-in and breakfast at DeVos Place
• 8:30 AM: Welcome and introduction from C3 founder Matthew Toth
• 9:00 AM: FBI session, often the most-talked-about briefing of the day
• 10:00 AM: Economic review and forecast with Dr. Paul Isely, in his third year on the agenda
• 11:00 AM: Breakout Segment 1
• 11:45 AM: Robert J. Darling keynote, returning by popular demand with his account of leadership inside the White House bunker on 9/11
• 12:30 PM: Lunch, one full hour, intentionally unstructured
• 1:45 PM: Breakout Segment 2
• 2:30 PM: Breakout Segment 3
• 3:00 PM: Vendor hall opens with networking time
• 4:30 PM: Closing keynote Q&A with Sol Rashidi
• 5:30 PM: Networking reception until 6:30 PM

You won't see every session. That's the design. Three breakout segments mean you'll choose one of several rooms in each window, which is where the talktracks come in.

What are the talk tracks at the C3 Tech Summit?

The breakout sessions are organized into tracks so attendees can self-select into rooms with relevant content. The four primary tracks for 2026 cover Customer Experience, Cybersecurity, IT, and Executive Leadership, with AI threaded through every one of them.

A quick orientation:

• Customer Experience. Sessions here cover contact center modernization, omnichannel routing, AI-assisted agent workflows, and the evolving role of CX leaders inside the executive team. If your title carries responsibility for customer-facing technology, this is your lane.
• Cybersecurity. Threat landscape briefings, defensive architecture, the human side of social engineering, and AI's dual role as both attacker and defender. The 9:00 AM FBI session sets the tone for the rest of this track.
• IT (Innovation and Infrastructure). Cloud strategy, secure networking, SD-WAN, infrastructure-as-a-service, and the operational realities of running modern enterprise tech. If you're carrying the weight of platform decisions, the IT track is built for you.
• Executive Leadership. Strategy, talent, governance, and the perspective that comes from people who have operated under pressure, most leaders only read about. Robert J. Darling's White House bunker account on 9/11 feeds this track, and Sol Rashidi's closing Q&A picks up the AI thread that runs through it.

You can absolutely cross tracks during the day. Most attendees do. Picking one track per breakout segment is a useful constraint, though not a hard rule.

How does AI show up across the day?

AI isn't a separate track because it stopped being a separate conversation. Different roles bring different AI questions to the room: CX teams want to know how to evaluate AI agents, cybersecurity teams are working through AI-augmented threat models, IT leaders need to talk about the data architecture AI demands, and in executive sessions, the board-level investment questions are landing in ways no one could have anticipated a year ago.

Sol Rashidi's closing keynote at 4:30 PM is the anchor, but the AI thread runs from the opening welcome through the reception. Bring your specific AI question, and you'll find someone wrestling with the same one, whether that's a session lead or a sponsor whose business depends on getting the answer right.

How do you actually use the supplier hall?

The vendor hall opens at 3:00 PM with an hour dedicated to networking before the closing keynote. With 60-plus sponsors on the floor, the practical question for first-timers is how to make that hour count.

A workable approach:

• Before you walk in: Skim the sponsor list on the Summit page. Mark three booths you actively want to visit because you have a real evaluation question, plus two booths in adjacent categories you want to learn about.
• In the hall: Spend the first 10 minutes scanning the room before committing to any booth. The traffic patterns will tell you where the substantive conversations are happening.
• The right opening question: Skip the demo. Ask, "What's the one use case where your solution actually outperforms the alternative I'm probably already considering?" The answer separates the substantive vendors from the rest within a minute.
• The follow-up: Get a calendar hold, not just a card. A 30-minute meeting in the two weeks after the Summit is worth more than a stack of brochures in your inbox.

C3's standard for sponsor conversations is content over sales pitch. The vendors who keep coming back understand the rules and play by them.

Logistics first-timers ask about

A few practical answers:

• Cost: Free, subject to approval.
• Dress code: Business casual to business formal. Bring layers, because meeting rooms run cold.
• Parking: Underground at DeVos Place, accessible from Michigan Street or Lyon Street. Heading west on Michigan, you can't make the left into the garage because of a concrete berm for a crosswalk. City-County Building parking on Monroe is the backup.
• Recordings: C3 records sessions and makes them available within 30 days for registered attendees.
• Same-day registration: Possible at the door, though online registration closes the week of the Summit.

What's new in Year 9?

A few practical things first-timers should know about how the ninth annual C3 Tech Summit has been built:

• A dedicated event app organizes the four talk tracks, lets you build a personalized agenda, and shows you which sessions your peers are choosing in real time. You can switch tracks mid-day if a conversation pulls you in a different direction.
• AI as the anchoring theme runs through every track and into Sol Rashidi's closing keynote. The Summit isn't an AI conference, but AI is the question boards, and CEOs are putting in front of every director-level leader. C3 built the agenda around answering it credibly.
• Robert J. Darling's White House bunker account brings a perspective on leadership under crisis that's rare on any agenda. Past attendees asked for him back, and the program team listened.
• Content elevated for director-level decision-makers. Every session has to clear the no-sales-pitch bar. The expectation for Year 9 is even higher: thought leadership and working knowledge that earns the time on your calendar.

C3 is still finalizing the agenda in the months ahead. The team will announce additional sessions and supplier spotlights as the date approaches

You won't see every session. That's the design. Three breakout segments mean you'll choose one of several rooms in each window, which is where the talktracks come in.

Reserve your spot

Registration for the 2026 C3 Tech Summit is open at c3techadvisors.com/summit. To get the most out of your first C3 Tech Summit, register early so you can review the sponsor list and the speaker bios before the day arrives.

If you're still on the fence, try this test. Name one technology decision you're working through right now. Someone at this C3 Tech Summit, whether a peer in a breakout or a sponsor with a business case riding on the same call, is working on the same one.

The day is built to put you in their orbit.