Considering half the reason for those conferences is networking, perhaps a 'regional' / distributed conference model would work - you could still choose to atte

Considering half the reason for those conferences is networking, perhaps a 'regional' / distributed conference model would work - you could still choose to attend an in-place event for all the networking benefits (albeit with a smaller group of people), but have all the talks live-streamed to theatres in each location (and online for those who don't care about the networking).