How to find and contact people going to a conference before the event starts

TL;DR: To find and contact people going to a conference before it starts, look for the people who say so themselves on LinkedIn: speakers posting "I'm speaking at", attendees writing "see you there" or "who else is going", and the people commenting on the organizer's and speakers' posts. Check each one against who you sell to, read what they wrote, then send a short LinkedIn and email sequence about the topic of their session or comment two to three weeks before the event, with an offer to meet there. A comment or a like is not proof that someone is attending, so write to what they said, not to an assumed ticket.

traxy, which we make, runs your entire LinkedIn GTM end to end, from finding high intent leads from social intent to enriching and researching each one, to running relevant, personalized LinkedIn and email outreach to them on autopilot. Autopilot starts only after you approve: you test the campaign on sample leads and approve the launch, then it sends on its own from your own connected LinkedIn and email accounts, or you approve every message in a review queue. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop the sequence. This guide covers the weeks before a conference. If the event is over, see how to follow up with people who engaged with an event post, and if you are hosting the event yourself, see the playbook for hosting your own LinkedIn event.

Last checked: November 13, 2026, against traxy's event-related outreach, tracking, create a campaign, review and launch, sequences and sender accounts docs.

How do I find and contact people going to a conference before the event starts?

Find the people who announce it on LinkedIn (speakers, attendees and commenters on the organizer's posts), keep only those who fit your buyer, and contact them two to three weeks before the event with a message about their topic and an offer to meet there. In traxy you find them with Social Intent Search or by tracking the organizer's company page, the speakers and the event posts, and a campaign runs the LinkedIn and email outreach from your own connected accounts after you approve the launch.

Nobody gives you the attendee list of someone else's conference. What you can see is what people post in public: the speaker announcement, the "booked my flight" post, the comment under the agenda reveal. That is a better starting point than a list anyway, because it comes with something to talk about.

The whole job, start to finish:

1. Find the people who say they are going. Search their posts and comments in plain English, ask trax for posts about the event, and track the organizer, the speakers and the announcement posts (how).

2. Keep the people who fit. Only people with a 50%+ ICP match become leads, and each one shows the post or comment behind them. Read it before you write (how).

3. Describe the event and test. Tell the campaign the event name, date, city and what you want, then test on sample leads with nothing sent (how).

4. Approve the launch and let it run. A LinkedIn and email sequence goes out from your own accounts, and replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop it (how).

Where do people going to a conference show it on LinkedIn?

In their own posts and in the comments on other people's event posts. The strongest evidence is a person writing that they will attend or speak. Everything else is weaker, and the table below shows how much each one supports.

Where to look, in rough order of value:

• Speaker announcements. Speakers post about their talk weeks ahead, often with the topic in the first line. Their commenters are colleagues, peers and people who plan to see the talk.

• Attendee posts. "Who's going to {conference}?" and "I'll be at booth 12" posts. The people writing them are the closest thing to a confirmed attendee you will find in public.

• The organizer's company page. Agenda reveals, speaker lineups and countdown posts. The comments under them are where people tag colleagues and say they are coming.

• Sponsor and exhibitor posts. Booth announcements and side events. Useful if your buyers are the people walking the floor.

• Last year's recap posts. The people who engaged with last year's recap are a list of people interested in the topic. They are not this year's attendees, so treat them as a topic audience.

How do I find those posts with Social Intent Search, or by tracking the organizer and the event posts?

Use Social Intent Search to find people who already wrote or commented about the conference or its topic, ask trax for posts about the event, and track the organizer's company page, the speakers and the individual announcement posts so the people who engage from now on come in too. Each route gives you people with the post or comment behind them.

Search what people already wrote

Social Intent Search is a plain-English search across 71M+ scanned LinkedIn likes, posts and comments. Describe the person and what they said, for example "RevOps leaders posting that they are attending {conference}" or "founders commenting that they will be at {conference} in {city}". Each person comes with the post or comment behind them, so you can see in one line whether they said "I'm going" or only liked a speaker's post.

You can run the same search from Claude or ChatGPT through the traxy MCP. Open each lead's Signals tab and check the date: a "see you there" from last year's edition is about last year.

Ask trax for posts about the event

trax, the traxy agent, can find LinkedIn posts on a topic, or posts similar to one you paste. Ask "find posts about {conference} 2026" or paste one speaker's announcement and ask for posts like it. Then pick the posts whose commenters look like your buyers and pull their audience (how to find LinkedIn posts on any topic).

Track the organizer's company page

Under Targeting > Companies, choose Track company from the New menu and add the organizer by domain or LinkedIn company page. traxy reads the page's posts for engagers who fit your ICP. This finds the people who engage with the organizer's posts, not every attendee or every employee (leads from company page engagers). Do the same for the main sponsors if their buyers are yours.

Track the speakers and the announcement posts

1. Track each speaker. Under Targeting > People, choose Track profile, paste the LinkedIn URL and pick a custom relationship tag named after the conference, such as "{conference} 2026 speakers". Ongoing monitoring covers the five most recent posts each speaker publishes after you add them, so add them as soon as the lineup is public.

2. Track the posts already out. If a speaker's announcement is older than the posts traxy checked when you added them, add it as a single post. Open Targeting > Single posts, choose Track post from the New menu, paste the URL and review the candidate scope before you confirm Find leads. Candidate counts are people to evaluate, not a promise of qualified leads.

3. Keep going until the event. Promotion picks up in the last two weeks. Track the new "who's going" and agenda posts as they appear.

There are no tracking limits on profiles, posts or company pages, so you can add every speaker and every sponsor you care about. Each tracked profile or post shows the leads it brought in, and Insights shows the top profiles and posts bringing in leads.

How do I qualify the people I find, and read the evidence first?

traxy checks every person against your lead criteria, and only people with a 50%+ ICP match become leads. Before anyone goes into a campaign, open the lead's Signals tab and read the post or comment, its source link and its date, then sort the audience by how strong that evidence is.

1. Set who you want to meet. Under Targeting > Lead criteria, set roles, departments, seniority and locations for people, and size, industry, revenue and funding stage for companies (company keywords live under Targeting > Intent signals). Add exclusions for people you never want, such as other vendors who will be exhibiting.

2. Read the evidence. Each lead shows the post, comment, like or repost that put them on your list, and is labeled Warm, Related, Activity or ICP match by how strong the evidence is. traxy's own event playbook says to inspect the evidence and the qualified lead before you reference an event (event-related outreach).

3. Sort by what they did. People who wrote that they will attend or speak go first, then commenters on the topic, then likes. If you have a lot of likes on a lineup post and few comments, that group gets a message about the topic, not about the event.

4. Keep customers and do-not-contact people out. Add customer domains to Settings > Blocklist and specific emails or profiles to Settings > Do not contact. Mark anyone wrong as Bad fit with a reason.

5. Get contact details. Email lookup finds a verified work email for a lead, and Auto-Enrich looks up contact data for newly qualified leads (it does not backfill old ones). The email steps of the sequence need that address.

6. Save the audience. In Leads, add your filters, choose Save as new view, name it after the event and share it. Campaigns use shared views, and the view updates as new people from the event posts qualify.

One person can engage with several event posts. traxy records the signals on one lead instead of creating duplicates, though totals across several posts can count the same person more than once, so review people in Leads.

How do I describe the event context and test the campaign on sample leads?

Create a campaign on the saved event view, tell trax the conference name, date and city, who will be there from your side and what you want (a short meeting at the event, a coffee, a booth visit), then ask it to test the plan. The test prepares research and message previews on sample leads and sends nothing.

1. Start the campaign. Open Outbound and choose Create campaign, or start in trax. Pick the shared event view as the audience.

2. Give the event context. For example: "{conference}, {city}, {dates}. Two of us are there both days. Goal: a 15-minute coffee on site with heads of sales at B2B software companies. Only mention the event to people whose own post or comment says they are going or speaking. For everyone else, write about the topic they engaged with."

3. Ask for research on each lead. A campaign researches each lead for the facts you ask for before any message is prepared, such as which session a speaker is giving, what their company sells, or whether they are hiring for sales. If a required fact isn't found, the lead stays in traxy, and in the campaign you can choose to skip it.

4. Group by signal. Leads are grouped by signal and each group gets its own personalized message variant: speakers, people who said they are going, commenters on the topic.

5. Test and read the results. Ask trax to test the plan and read the research and drafts in the campaign panel. Check that every message uses only facts the research supports, that nothing assumes attendance the person didn't state, and that the timing still makes sense for the event date. Ask trax to revise anything that's off. A good test does not mean anything was sent.

Messages that fit the evidence, for a team that helps sales leaders (swap in your own offer):

To a speaker:

Hi {first name}, saw you're speaking at {conference} on {topic}. We work with sales teams on that exact problem and I'll be there both days. Would a 15-minute coffee after your session work?

To someone who posted that they're going:

Hi {first name}, saw your post that you're heading to {conference}. A couple of us will be there too. If {problem you solve} is on your list this quarter, happy to grab a coffee on day one.

To a commenter on the topic, with no stated plan to attend:

Hi {first name}, your comment on {speaker}'s post about {topic} matched what we hear from sales leaders. If you're at {conference}, I'd be glad to meet. If not, happy to share what's working for others.

The third message works whether or not they go, which is the point. For more on wording, see how to message LinkedIn post engagers without sounding creepy.

How do I run the LinkedIn and email sequence after I approve the launch?

Open Launch, check who joins, who is skipped, the sender, the steps and the delivery mode, and confirm. The sequence then sends LinkedIn and email steps from your own connected sender accounts, either on its own because you approved the launch or one message at a time from a review queue, and replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces stop it.

1. Connect the senders. Under Outbound > Sender accounts, connect the LinkedIn accounts and mailboxes of the people who will be at the event. Each sender has its own sending limits, and a campaign can't bypass them.

2. Build the steps. A sequence is multi-step outreach across LinkedIn and email, and a wait can depend on an event such as a connection being accepted. A common shape before a conference: a LinkedIn connection request with a short note about their topic, a LinkedIn message once they accept, an email a few days later, and a last short note a few days before the event.

3. Review the launch. Launch review shows who joins and who is skipped because another unfinished campaign holds them or a completed campaign already contacted them. Campaigns run in priority order, so one lead never gets two campaigns at once, and a lead can be in only one active sequence at a time.

4. Pick the delivery mode. Let the approved campaign send on its own, which is what "on autopilot" means in traxy: it runs after you test it and approve the launch. Or choose approval mode, and each message waits in the campaign's review queue for Approve or Approve all. You can edit a message, save it, then approve the saved version.

5. Start early. Sender availability, spacing and limits can delay steps, and connection requests take time to be accepted. Launch two to three weeks out so the last step lands before the event, not during it.

6. Handle replies in one place. The inbox keeps one conversation per lead across LinkedIn and email. Reply there, or pause a lead's sequence and take over. Connect Google Calendar to see meetings with traxy leads under Meetings and record what came of them.

You can run the same campaign from Claude, ChatGPT or another AI chat through the traxy MCP: draft it, test it on sample leads, launch it and reply in the inbox, with the AI asking for your yes before anything sends or launches. More on the outreach half is on LinkedIn outbound with traxy, and the full approach is on signal-based outbound.

Limits: a post interaction is not proof of attendance or consent

A like, a comment or even a "see you there" does not prove that someone registered, will attend or wants to hear from you. traxy's event playbook says it directly: don't treat a post interaction as proof of event registration, attendance or consent to unrelated follow-up.

• Activity is not a ticket. traxy finds people from LinkedIn activity: their posts, comments and likes, and the posts you track. A post interaction is not proof of registration or attendance, so treat it as a stated plan, not a ticket.

• Plans change. "I'll be there" in October is a plan for December. Write "if you're at {conference}", not "since you're attending".

• A like is the weakest signal. Use the topic, or a plain role-based note, for people who only liked a lineup post.

• Tracking a page is not a list of its audience. Tracking the organizer's company page finds people who engage with its posts and fit your ICP, not everyone who follows it, works there or attends.

• Fit is not a buying decision. A 50%+ ICP match says the person looks like your buyer. It doesn't say they want to buy.

• Social Intent Search counts engagements, not people. 71M+ is the number of scanned likes, posts and comments, not attendees or buyers.

• No result promises. Nothing here guarantees replies or meetings. Your offer, your fit and the event still decide that.

• Respect the opt-outs. Unsubscribes stop the sequence. Add anyone who asks not to be contacted to Do not contact, and check the email rules where your leads are.

Before, during or after: which guide do you need?

• Before someone else's conference: this guide. Find who says they are going and set up meetings ahead of time.

• After the event: follow up with people who engaged with the event's posts, from recap posts and speaker takeaways.

• Your own event: hosting a LinkedIn event, where you have your own registration list and should keep it separate from post engagement.

FAQ

How do I find out who is going to a conference?

Look at what people post and comment on LinkedIn: speaker announcements, "who else is going" posts and comments on the organizer's agenda and lineup posts. In traxy, search those posts and comments in plain English with Social Intent Search, or track the organizer's company page, the speakers and the announcement posts. This shows who said they plan to go, not who registered.

Does traxy show who registered for a conference?

It shows who posted, commented or liked about it on LinkedIn, with the post behind each person. traxy's docs say a post interaction is not proof of registration or attendance.

How far before a conference should I reach out?

Two to three weeks is a good default. It leaves time for a connection request to be accepted and a follow-up or two before the event, and calendars are still open. A last short note a few days before works for people who haven't replied.

Should I mention the conference in my first message?

Only when the person's own post or comment says they are going or speaking. For everyone else, write about the topic they engaged with and add "if you're at {conference}".

Can I email people I found from LinkedIn posts before an event?

Yes, if you have a work email for them and your outreach follows the email rules where they are. In traxy, email lookup finds a verified work email, the sequence sends from your own connected mailbox, and unsubscribes and hard bounces stop it.

Does the sequence stop if someone replies before the event?

Yes. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces end active outreach for that lead. You pick the conversation up in the inbox.

Can I run pre-event outreach from Claude or ChatGPT?

Yes. Connect the traxy MCP, then ask your AI to search social intent for the event, qualify a post's audience, draft the campaign, test it on sample leads and launch it. The AI asks for your yes before anything sends (LinkedIn MCP).

Does it matter which LinkedIn account sends?

Yes. Send from the accounts of the people who will be at the event, so the person who offers the coffee is the one who shows up. Connect them under Outbound > Sender accounts.

Next step

Pick one conference your buyers go to in the next six weeks. In traxy, track the organizer's company page and three speakers, search for "posting that they are going to {conference}", save the people who fit as a shared view, and test a campaign on sample leads before you approve the launch.