Having already noted this morning one new event at which I will be speaking before this year is out, let me note another at which I will be speaking in 2027.

I suspect most readers of this blog won't attend the Festival of Accounting and Bookkeeping 2027, but I can assure you you might be surprised by how many people do. Held at the NEC in March, the event is big enough to run five simultaneous presentation stages, and those anxious to sell software and other products to accountants seem to populate many stands.

I gave the opening presentation on the main stage in 2025, and this week I discovered the organisers had scheduled me to repeat that performance in 2027, though they had forgotten to tell me. I have now agreed to do so on March 10 2027. When doing so, I made clear that I did not want to talk about pure accounting issues. Instead, I wanted to talk about the political economy of accounting and taxation, because that matters to me, and the organisers have embraced this idea in a way that surprises me.

I think it is good news that they now understand that the accounting profession and tax specialists do not exist in isolation from the economy going on all around them.

Corporate reporting is not an activity separate from corporate business, and taxation is not purely technical, but has strong social and ethical implications as well.

A while ago, I doubt that this would have been appreciated. It seems to me to be a welcome development, and that is why I will be on the main stage, and at other events at this Festival on the day in question, because the organisers are quite sure that there is an appetite to discuss these issues.

And if you want to go and want a trip to the NEC in Birmingham, I'm quite sure tickets are still available. Just follow the links here.

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