A peer-reviewed congress and a wellness weekend often carry the same thousand-dollar ticket. Every event here is classified by what it actually is, so you can tell which you are buying before you book the flight.
EventsReviewed
The short answer
The major psychedelic conferences fall into four kinds, and the ticket price is the least reliable guide to which one you are buying. Psychedelic Science 2027 (MAPS, Denver, 3–7 May 2027) is the largest and combines all four at once. ICPR in the Netherlands is the most purely academic. Horizons in New York splits its industry day from its science and medicine day, which is unusually honest structuring and makes it easy to buy only the part you came for. Events built around microdosing, retreats and biohacking are commercial products first — often worth attending on their own terms, with the research literature still the place to check what they claim.
How to read this page
The four kinds, and why the label matters
These labels are ours, not the organizers'. They are a description of what the event is, not a rating of how good it is — a well-run industry conference is a good industry conference.
Scientific
Research presented to an audience competent to challenge it — abstracts, posters, methods talks. The program is built by a scientific committee.
Clinical
Aimed at practicing clinicians: protocols, screening, adverse events, ethics. Often carries continuing-education credit.
Industry
Companies, investors, operators and regulators. Useful, and structurally promotional — the people presenting mostly have something to sell.
Advocacy & community
Policy reform, drug-policy organizing, community and cultural programming. Openly partisan about its aims, which is not a criticism.
Commercial
The event is a product, and usually a funnel — a paid summit, a wellness weekend, a lead-generation webinar. May be worth attending; is not a scientific meeting.
6 coming up
Upcoming
Dates, venues and prices as published by the organizer. Every entry records when we last read their page — prices move, and a stale price is a wrong price.
Tickets: General admission $839–$1,199; VIP $1,189–$1,699
Descended from the Wonderland industry conference and now hosted within Dave Asprey's BEYOND series, which places it closer to biohacking and consciousness technology than to clinical research. Rick Doblin and Scott Aaronson MD are among 60-plus speakers, so there is real content on the bill; the framing around it is wellness-commercial, and the ticket price is comparable to a scientific congress that is not.
Psychedelic Alpha with Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics
IndustryClinical
Dates
October 15, 2026
Location
New York, NY · New York Academy of Medicine
The named Thursday of Horizons week, and the most useful single day on this calendar for anyone whose question is when this gets paid for rather than whether it works. Four tracks — policy, capital, reimbursement, care delivery — aimed at executives, providers and regulators, with federal agencies and payors on the program. The reimbursement track is the one nobody else convenes: no psilocybin service is covered by any US insurer today, and the people who decide that are in the room.
Horizons Media, Inc. — a 501(c)(3) educational charity
ScientificClinicalAdvocacy & community
Dates
October 15–17, 2026
Location
New York, NY · New York Academy of Medicine
The longest-running psychedelic conference in the United States, and structured so the parts are separable: Thursday is the industry day — now named and programmed separately as the Psychedelic Healthcare Forum, listed above — and Friday is science and medicine at the New York Academy of Medicine. If you want the research without the commercial programming, that split is the reason to look at this one closely.
Tickets: 1-day $69; 2-day $90; 3-day with Thursday symposium $399 (add $5 at the door). Tickets via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/psycon-psychedelic-convention-albuquerque-nm-2027-tickets-1991805139791
A conference and trade show, and the trade show is the larger half — the organizers describe it as built for “the next generation of psychedelic businesses” and sell exhibitor booths, sponsorships and full-color program advertising from $299 to $599 a page. Fourteen programming tracks do include clinical trials and studies alongside plant medicine and culture, so there is real content here; the selection filter is who bought a stand rather than what a scientific committee accepted. Worth noting the choice of city: New Mexico is building the third US supervised-access program, which makes this the closest thing to a hometown industry event for a state whose rules are still being written.
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
ScientificClinicalIndustryAdvocacy & community
Dates
May 3–7, 2027
Location
Denver, CO · Colorado Convention Center
Tickets: Early bird from $649; tiered by community, practitioner and industry
The largest gathering in the field — MAPS expects 8,000-plus and the 2023 edition drew far more. It is genuinely all four categories at once, held in the same building, which is a strength if you want the whole field in one week and a problem if you are trying to separate evidence from enthusiasm. Note MAPS is an advocacy organization as well as a research sponsor; that is public and long-standing, not a hidden conflict.
Tickets: Tiered by day, in line with the Albuquerque show. Tickets via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/psycon-psychedelic-convention-denver-co-2027-tickets-1991876503241
The same format as the Albuquerque show, with a speaker list the organizers say is partly exclusive to Denver. Colorado is one of only two states operating a licensed supervised-access program, so the exhibitor floor here is closer to a live market than at most events on this calendar — which cuts both ways, since a room full of operators is a room full of people with something to sell.
Organizer’s page last read August 31, 2026
Archive
Recently concluded
Kept rather than deleted. “Did that happen, and what was it?” is a real question, and a calendar that silently drops the past cannot answer it.
Tickets: Free registration; paid all-access pass and APA CE credits sold separately
CE: APA CE credits offered as a paid add-on for licensed clinicians
A free online summit that functions as a lead-generation funnel: register free, receive the interviews, then be sold the recordings and CE credits. Paul Stamets and Gabor Maté appeared alongside Dave Asprey, which indicates the selection filter was audience rather than evidence. Worth knowing that microdosing is the weakest corner of this literature — the placebo-controlled trials have been substantially null — and a summit organized around it will not conclude that.
Europe's academic meeting, and the one with the least commercial programming attached to it. The 2026 edition has concluded and the organizers say it returns in 2028; the program archive and poster presentations remain online, which is worth more than most conference websites leave behind.
Organizer’s page last read August 31, 2026
Before you book
One question separates the categories more reliably than anything on a sales page: who builds the program? A scientific committee reviewing submitted abstracts produces a different event from a team booking speakers with products. Neither is dishonest. They are different things, and only one of them will tell you what the evidence does not support.
Three practical notes. Continuing-education credit is often a paid add-on rather than part of the ticket, and at free online summits it is frequently the actual product. Early-bird pricing on the larger conferences is a real discount rather than a manufactured deadline, so booking early is usually rational. And a speaker list is not a program — a genuinely eminent researcher appearing on a bill says nothing about the other thirty sessions.
If you are considering an event as a route into working in this field, the more important page is facilitator training, because a conference badge is not a credential and no conference leads to a license.
Psychedelic Science, run by MAPS, is the largest by a wide margin. The 2027 edition runs 3–7 May 2027 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, with MAPS expecting more than 8,000 attendees; earlier editions have drawn considerably more. It combines research, policy, industry and cultural programming in one venue.
Which psychedelic conference is the most scientific?
ICPR, run by the OPEN Foundation in the Netherlands, has the least commercial programming attached to it and is the closest to a conventional academic meeting. In the United States, the Friday science and medicine day of Horizons, held at the New York Academy of Medicine, is the most research-focused single day on the calendar.
Do psychedelic conferences offer CME or CE credit?
Some do, and it varies year to year, so check the organizer's own page rather than assuming. Where continuing education is offered it is often a paid add-on rather than included in the ticket — including at free online summits, where the CE credit is frequently the actual product being sold.
Are psychedelic conferences worth the ticket price?
It depends entirely on what kind of event it is, and the ticket price will not tell you. A wellness-industry weekend and a scientific congress can both cost around $1,000. The question worth asking before paying is who builds the program — a scientific committee reviewing abstracts, or a sales team booking speakers with something to sell.
Does this page take money to list an event?
No. Nobody can buy a listing, a position on the page, or a softer description. We take no affiliate commission on ticket sales and no referral fees. Listing an event is not an endorsement of it, and several entries here carry criticism.