2026 People's Coast Summit

Our annual end-of-season gathering features delicious food, great company, helpful workshops, and inspiring talks.

This campus-style event will take place across multiple venues in Lincoln City, Oregon (October 13-14).

Keynotes and meals will be held at the Chinook Winds Casino Resort with workshops taking place at various venues around town.

This year, you'll hear from inspiring speakers and have plenty of opportunities for valuable networking, brainstorming, and workshopping with industry partners.

Our agenda features a lineup of speakers and sessions offering big-picture thinking and topics valuable to tourism stakeholders, including destination marketing, technology, sustainability, and more.

We are able to keep the People's Coast Summit affordable thanks to the support of our sponsors: Travel Oregon, Explore Lincoln City, Oregon Coast Today, Cardwell Creative, and MEDIAmerica.

Info: Registration opens and breakfast begins at 8:30 a.m. Our morning keynote, “Honoring the Past, Restoring the Future: The Siletz Tribe and the Return of the Elakha,” begins at 9 a.m.

Join Robert Kentta of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians for a conversation about the history, people, and lands of western Oregon and the enduring relationship between Indigenous communities and the natural world. Chanel Hason, Director of Outreach & Community Relations for the Elakha Alliance, will then connect this history to efforts to restore sea otters to the Oregon coast. Once abundant and culturally significant to coastal Tribes, sea otters were driven to local extinction by the maritime fur trade. Their return could help restore nearshore ecosystems while creating new eco-tourism opportunities that connect visitors with this culturally and ecologically significant species and support coastal communities and businesses.

Info: A strong brand starts with asking the right questions. In this interactive workshop, you'll explore the fundamentals of building a memorable visual brand identity. We’ll uncover what makes your organization unique and how to communicate it effectively to visitors and customers. Through guided exercises and creative prompts, you'll develop ideas for your own brand and learn why consistency is key to building recognition and trust. You'll leave with practical tools, fresh inspiration and actionable ideas you can immediately put to work.

Info: New to the Oregon tourism landscape or looking for a clearer picture of how it all fits together? Join us for an interactive Oregon Tourism 101 workshop featuring both the Oregon Coast Visitors Association and Travel Oregon.
Get an inside look at how Oregon’s state and regional tourism organizations work, what each organization does, and how their programs and resources can support your community or business. OCVA and Travel Oregon staff will share current priorities, programs, and opportunities, while making space for questions and conversation.
Attendees will leave with a better understanding of Oregon’s tourism ecosystem, who to connect with, where to find resources, and, most importantly, how to build stronger collaborations across the state and along the Oregon Coast.

Info: Join us for an informative session with Cecilia Suvagian from Travel Oregon, where you'll discover how to leverage Google tools to enhance your business’s online presence. In this workshop, you'll explore valuable Locl tools provided by Travel Oregon to help market your business, learn how to claim, manage, and optimize your Google Business Profile to attract more customers, and ensure your business is accurately represented on Google Maps so potential customers can easily find you. Whether you're new to Google Business Profiles or seeking to optimize your current strategies, this session will offer actionable insights to help your business succeed.

Info: From mountain biking trails and disc golf to public art and other visitor amenities, great destination development starts with more than a good idea. Join OCVA’s Jesse Dolin and Dave Lacey for a hands-on look at how communities can evaluate, fund, develop and manage projects that benefit both residents and visitors. Explore real-world examples, uncover the costs and considerations that often get overlooked, and test your own project ideas through a practical destination development framework. You’ll leave with new ideas and a tool you can take home to determine what’s worth building, who needs to be involved, and what it will take to make it successful.

Info: Join Steve Halasz from Blue Room Research for a high-level look at the current state of the tourism industry, from macro trends shaping travel and consumer behavior to year-to-date performance across the Oregon Coast. This lunch keynote will bring the data to life through clear visuals, infographics, and a closer look at pacing and performance across coastal communities and regions.

Building on real-world case studies, Blue Room Research will highlight what the numbers mean for destinations and businesses and why having access to timely, actionable visitor economy data matters. The session will also introduce Blue Room Research’s and OCVA's new concept for a cooperative model and make the case for how participating communities and organizations can benefit from pooling resources and investing in better data together.

Expect big-picture insights, coastal-specific data, and a compelling look at what we can learn (and do) when we have a clearer picture of the visitor economy.

Info: Is your digital presence reaching its full potential? Join our hands-on workshop to learn how to build a digital experience that has better access and drives real business results. Creating an accessible digital experience for your business isn’t just a good idea – it is an innovative way to reach customers. In this interactive workshop, accessibility consultant Taylor Yount will cover digital marketing best practices and how they intersect with accessibility. Simple ways, from design edits to your website to reach wider audiences, to using accessibility options already on social media platforms to boost your business's engagement. Learn from a local expert and leave with ready-to-use tools to take your online outreach to the next level.

Info: How can businesses, organizations, and communities create places where LGBTQIA2S+ people feel genuinely welcomed and represented? This lively discussion will explore practical approaches to inclusion, from partnering with queer organizations and supporting LGBTQIA2S+ events to authentic representation, inclusive marketing, and navigating social media challenges. Hear from Oregon Coast leaders about what they’ve learned, what has worked, and how communities can build stronger connections and support for LGBTQIA2S+ people along the coast.

Info: Creating an exceptional itinerary for media, travel writers, influencers, and FAM participants goes far beyond scheduling stops and activities. It is about curating a personalized experience while making every step of the journey easy for the participant. In this interactive workshop, attendees will learn how to build thoughtful, detailed itineraries that anticipate needs, communicate essential information, showcase partners and communities, and keep the experience running smoothly. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for elevating their itineraries from a schedule into a professional, user-friendly tool that enhances the entire hosted experience.

Info:
Join Travel Oregon for Grantsmithing 101, a hands-on, conversational workshop designed to sharpen your grant writing skills and deepen your understanding of the grantmaker’s perspective. Led by Grants Manager Deb Vaughn and Stewardship Investments Manager Dawn Smallman, this session will help you avoid common pitfalls, align your proposals with funder priorities, and craft compelling narratives and budgets that stand out. You’ll gain insights from real-world examples and reviewer feedback while building a stronger, more strategic approach to securing funding. Ideal for nonprofits, destination organizations, city and regional leaders, and tourism businesses ready to level up their grants game.

*This session was also offered at the 2025 People's Coast Summit. The content will be repeated.*

Info: North The Coast SeaDogs + Duncan Berry

Get ready to kick back, sing along, and celebrate the coast with North The Coast SeaDogs! This lively acoustic ensemble brings a toe-tapping mix of folk, country, classic rock, Irish tunes, light jazz, and favorites from the ’50s and ’60s.

For a true taste of coastal culture, their specialty Sea Shanty Show features sailor attire, plenty of sailor humor, and shanties that invite everyone to join in. Bring your voice—this is one evening where the audience is part of the band! Come ready for good music, good laughs, and a whole lot of singing along.

Info: How can tourism turn stewardship into an experience—and an experience into a reason to stay?

Stewardship doesn’t have to be a message visitors see on a sign or a social media post. When visitors experience a place through a guided tour, event, workshop or hands-on activity, stewardship can become part of the trip itself. This changes how people understand a destination, how they behave while they’re there, and potentially gives them another reason to stay an extra night.

This interactive panel brings together tourism and environmental partners from Lincoln City to explore how collaboration can transform stewardship initiatives into compelling visitor experiences. Through real-world examples, panelists will share how tourism organizations and environmental groups can pool resources, amplify one another’s expertise and create programs that serve both visitors and the places they came to experience.

Info: Join Lisa Norton and Andrea Taylor from the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians (CTSI) to learn about their current project: co-creating a tourism strategy for CTSI alongside CTSI Tribal Council and Tribal Members. Additionally, join a facilitated discussion and feedback opportunity with Allison Neaton and Julie Davis of 106 Group, an award-winning cultural heritage firm supporting the development of this plan.

Info: New to OCVA or looking for a better understanding of how we work across the Oregon Coast? Join OCVA staff for an informal and interactive introduction to the Oregon Coast Visitors Association and our role as the Regional Destination Management Organization for the entire Oregon Coast. We’ll provide an overview of who we are, what we do, the projects and programs we’re currently working on, and how our work connects with communities and tourism partners across the region.

Come with your questions and learn more about opportunities to connect, collaborate, and get involved. Whether you’re new to the Oregon Coast tourism community or just want a refresher on how OCVA can support your work, this session is a chance to meet the team and get to know The People’s Coast a little better.

Info: What happens when art becomes more than something to look at and becomes a way to tell stories, strengthen communities, create economic opportunity, and inspire travel?

Facilitated by Liora Sponko of the Oregon Arts Commission and Oregon Cultural Trust, this keynote explores how art, culture, and creative placemaking can enhance the visitor experience while supporting thriving coastal communities. Liora will share insights into the economic impact of arts and culture, including how creative investment supports jobs, local businesses, tourism, and community development.

Through Oregon Coast examples—including the Coos Art Museum’s Roots and Visions exhibition of traditional and contemporary Indigenous art, and Kirista Trask’s work through Cambium Gallery and heART Humanities Hub—we’ll explore how creativity can celebrate culture, connect visitors to place, and create memorable experiences.

Event venue

Chinook's Seafood Grill, 1501 Northwest 40th Place, Lincoln City, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.

Get the app →

Discover more events by tag