I Flew to Omaha to See If Berkshire Bash Is Bigger Than Warren Buffett

I flew to Omaha this week to attend the first Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in six decades not led by Warren Buffett as CEO.

My conversations with more than 20 shareholders, analysts, and executives pointed to an uncertain future for the iconic gathering now that Buffett has stepped out of the spotlight.

Berkshire’s annual bash has been dubbed “Woodstock for Capitalists” because it attracts tens of thousands of people from across the world to Buffett’s hometown of Omaha for a weekend of shopping, learning, networking, and more.

Buffett, 95, rocked the business world during last year’s meeting when he unexpectedly announced he would retire at the end of the year. His hand-picked successor and the head of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations, Greg Abel, took over as CEO on New Year’s Day 2026.

Ajay Sharma, 42, a graduate research assistant at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, moonlights as a ride-share worker. While driving me to my hotel on Thursday night, he told me what it was like during last year’s meeting.

“For a part-time Uber driver, it was like Christmas coming,” he said in a follow-up email.

“I made double the hourly money I usually make,” he continued. “I picked up people from hotels 12 miles away from the city center, as all the hotels were full, and there were no places in the restaurants.”

Buffett’s decision this year to sit in the audience during the weekend’s main event, an hourslong Q&A session, and have Abel host it instead, led many to expect a smaller turnout this year.

Sharma said a prospective decline in attendance was a “real concern,” as “everyone in the city” benefits from the meeting’s “huge economic impact.”

I spoke to Alston Li, an 18-year-old college student who’d driven up from Houston to attend the Berkshire meeting for the first time, on Friday outside an investor conference in the Hilton Omaha.

Li said he sensed a “pessimistic” energy in the city, as “the legendary people are passing away” and Buffett could follow soon. Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, died at age 99 in late 2023.

I asked Dan Sheridan, the CEO of Berkshire-owned Brooks Running, whether the meeting could remain such a draw once Buffett is gone.

“I don’t know,” he told me on the floor of the CHI Health Center’s exhibit hall, where dozens of Berkshire subsidiaries were selling their wares. “That’s the truth. I think it can.”

Sheridan said the gathering is more than an opportunity to see Buffett or Abel in person; it serves as an annual “reunion” for many shareholders.

“There’s something unique and special about that that I think could live on,” he said.

Jeremy Padawer, the president of Squishmallows-maker Jazwares, told me that many “do not appreciate what community means” to some people, pointing to the intense passion and tight bonds that connect certain fandoms. He said there’s a “very similar vibe to a show like this” where, for Berkshire acolytes, “this is their universe.”

It’s unclear how many fewer attendees there were this year. David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and longtime Berkshire blogger, wrote on X that it “was about 25,000, down from 40,000 last year. “

Tillman Versch, 40, from Germany, is an unofficial tour guide for the Berkshire meeting who organizes book signings and other events throughout the weekend.

I spoke to him at a downtown bar called the Upstream Brewing Company on the night before the meeting.

Versch told me he’d seen a 50% to 70% drop in online traffic for his online meeting guide. He attributed that in part to Abel having a fraction of the public profile and YouTube presence that Buffett has.

He told me that fewer people made the trip to Omaha this year because they weren’t willing to fork out as much money to see Abel talk instead of Buffett, who he described as the “Taylor Swift of investing.”

Versch also said that violent protests, political tensions, and changes to visa requirements may have also curbed travel to Omaha this year.

Moreover, he said that demand had been “pulled forward” in recent years because people wanted to see Buffett and Munger before it was too late.

On Saturday, the central arena of the CHI Health Center felt significantly less full than it was last year, the 60th anniversary of Buffett’s takeover of Berkshire.

Jay Williams, 40, a real estate investor from Florida, told me during a break in the meeting that she’d deliberately slept in that morning as she knew the arena wouldn’t be as packed as in previous years.

She recalled that in 2023, “people were sitting in the aisles” because many suspected it would be Munger’s last meeting as he was approaching 100.

Despite the smaller turnout, Williams said: “I feel the energy is the same, the networking is still there.”

During this year’s meeting, Buffett invited Tim Cook to take a bow and then sat for a surprise interview backstage, which was broadcast to the audience.

Abel dug into several Berkshire subsidiaries, including the BNSF Railway, and fielded questions about AI, fossil fuels, his more hands-on management style, and other topics.

After the Q&A, I caught up with Bill Hughes, 41, a financial advisor from Oklahoma, as he browsed the displays in Oriental Trading’s booth.

He told me there were “definitely fewer people here” than last year, when an “absolutely insane” number of people descended on Omaha to see Buffett because they feared after Munger’s death it “might be their last chance.”

“So I don’t think it’s so much Greg,” he said. “I think it’s just that it’s not Warren and it’s not Charlie.”

Hughes predicted attendance would “build back up” in future years. He suggested that reintroducing the funny videos featured in past meetings, extending shopping hours, and hotels cutting prices could help.

I later spoke to Brett Gardner, the author of “Buffett’s Early Investments,” at the Hilton Omaha across the street from the CHI Health Center.

Gardner said that Abel came across well onstage and was funnier than he’s been in the past, but it might not be enough to sustain the meeting in the long term.

“I unfortunately think that when Buffett passes, the meeting’s going to get much smaller, maybe a couple thousand people,” he said, adding that he’d be “very surprised” if it could fill a stadium a decade after Buffett’s gone.