[ID MTN EXP] Allen & Co. is coming back to Sun Valley this summer, one year after canceling its annual summit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to multiple sources familiar with the event.
The planned return marks the 38th running of the annual conference, an anniversary delayed a year after the boutique New York investment bank canceled the annual conclave in mid-April, 2020.
It also marks another step towards normalcy in the Wood River Valley after a 2020 stripped of its usual hallmarks by the coronavirus and subsequent lockdown. Earlier this week, another summer stalwart, the Sun Valley Music Festival, announced that it would bring back live music in late July. The Express could not confirm the dates of this year's Allen & Co. conference, though it typically takes place the first week of July.
The local economic impact of Allen & Co. is tough to pin down. Most of the accounting is locked in the private records of two very private businesses: the eponymous investment bank, and Sun Valley Co. For scores of locals, though, from restauranteurs to rafting guides, the conference has provided a reliable boost to mid-summer business.
As vaccination efforts ramp up, it remains to be seen how remnant COVID-19 protocols will alter the event, which typically brings some world's foremost figures in business, media, technology and politics to the north valley. Guests in 2019 included former New York City Mayor and one-time presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Nike co-founder Phil Knight, to name a few. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg—four of the five richest people on the planet, according to Forbes Magazine—routinely attend.
Though 2020's conference was canceled, the traditionally secretive Allen & Co. was more visible than usual in the valley last year. Within the first month of the pandemic, the company donated $1 million to the St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund and $200,000 to The Hunger Coalition, according to those nonprofits. Allen & Co. and conference founder Herbert Allen Jr. and the company own more than a dozen properties in Ketchum and Sun Valley, according to Blaine County records. |