[whatyesaid]

These kinds of famous speakers I'd imagine would be surrounded 24/7 anyway.

Personally I do watch recorded talks and lectures from conferences every now and then. This conference could have too much emphasis on networking for experienced people if the talks are targeted more towards beginners in PL though. Any advanced conference would have enough informative talks since very few people have time to read up on everything in their niche as often there's sub-niches and sub-sub-niches.

I'm also not saying it needs to be a permanent virtual event but it could start out that way if you don't get enough funding. And even if the talks are much more intended for beginners and the conference is about networking, it's better than nothing to get started with. Unless those famous people promoted the Kickstarter it was never gonna hit 50k anyway.