In my opinion, there’s a reason why TED events focus on conferences, not panels.
Also, it’s quite common in the press to see „Here’s something that has been said at X conference.” It’s quite rare to hear, „In that specific Y panel, it has been said that …”
I wouldn’t say I like conference panels, and, instead, I prefer conferences. They are hard to follow from the audience (going from person A to person B is not easy), they are hard to understand (no slides, no focus, no coherence from the speeches), and sometimes they are ill-prepared („I’ll just go to the conference and do my best to answer live, no matter the quality of what I said”).
Differences between a panel discussion and a single speech – Blog de Olivian Breda.
