08/11/2026
has been on the road - and in the air! This year has been a busy one, as we have been traveling from state to state attending many of the local and national conventions available to funeral professionals. So far, we have been to Charleston South Carolina Funeral Directors Association Inc. , Ft. Worth ICCFA , Virginia Beach Virginia Funeral Directors Association (VFDA) , New Orleans for the joint Louisiana Funeral Directors Association and Mississippi Funeral Directors Association, Miami Florida Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association, and Tampa National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Inc. with trips still coming to Minneapolis for Cremation Association of North America and Saratoga Springs for New York State Funeral Directors Association, Inc. (NYSFDA). We have met so many amazing funeral directors that are eager to relay what they have learned to all the consumers out there looking for guidance along this strange - and difficult - but necessary step in life.
Every year, funeral professionals gather at state and national conventions to connect with colleagues, discover new products, earn continuing education credits, and hear from some of the industry's leading voices. These events are invaluable. They provide funeral directors with the opportunity to be informed about emerging trends, changing regulations, new technologies, and innovative ways to better serve families.
The halls are filled with exhibitors - manufacturers, service providers, technology companies, memorialization experts, and countless other vendors who invest significant resources to introduce funeral professionals to the latest products and services available. It's one of the few places where directors can compare solutions side-by-side, ask questions directly to suppliers, and discover ideas that improve both their businesses and the families' experience.
The educational programs are equally important. Continuing education credits help directors maintain their licenses while learning about legal developments, consumer trends, grief support, business management, marketing, and the evolving expectations of today's families. The conventions do an exceptional job serving the professional needs of funeral directors.
But here's the question we should be asking:
If our profession is committed to educating consumers, why do we keep them out of the very place where funeral service showcases its best ideas?
Only 43% of American consumers say they are aware of after cremation memorialization options, and 42% say they don't have enough information to make informed decisions about funeral and cemetery products and services. On the contrary, funeral directors estimate that around 91% of consumers are properly educated in cremation and permanent memorialization options. That's a pretty gaping disparity.
So, the one audience that could benefit the most from these conventions is never invited.
As a profession, we frequently talk about the importance of preplanning. We encourage families to make informed decisions before a death occurs. We say consumers need better education about cremation, burial, memorialization, personalization, veterans' benefits, green options, pricing, and the value funeral professionals bring to every family they serve.
Yet all the educational events our profession produces yearly are designed exclusively for ourselves. Directors are left to plan local engagement meetings on their own trying to draw an audience to learn about their services and the importance of pre-planning their end of life plans. Not all funeral homes have the ability to create these learning opportunities, because let's face it - the job is 24/7, 365.
Imagine if the final day of every state and national convention became a Consumer Day.
Instead of vendors watching traffic diminish as attendees head home, the exhibit hall would welcome the public. Families considering preplanning could meet funeral directors in a relaxed environment, ask questions without the emotional weight of an immediate loss, and discover products and services they never knew existed.
They could compare memorial options, understand cremation choices, learn about personalization, explore keepsakes, monuments, celebration-of-life products, and technology that helps preserve memories. More importantly, they would leave with a better understanding of the role funeral directors playโnot as people who simply arrange funerals, but as trusted professionals who guide families through one of life's most difficult experiences.
For funeral directors, Consumer Day becomes something even more valuable than another day at a trade show. It becomes community outreach. It becomes relationship-building. It becomes marketing without feeling like marketing. It provides an opportunity to demonstrate expertise long before families ever need their services.
For vendors, it transforms what is traditionally the slowest day of the convention into an opportunity to educate the people who ultimately benefit from the products they create.
For state and national associations, it represents something larger. It demonstrates transparency. It builds public trust and reinforces the message that funeral service has nothing to hide and everything to teach.
Most importantly, it creates a partnership that currently doesn't existโone between funeral associations and their members to educate the public together.
The profession often talks about meeting consumers where they are. But perhaps we've been asking the wrong question.
Maybe we should be asking why we haven't invited them to where we are?
If conventions exist to advance funeral service, then advancing public understanding could also be part of that mission.
Everyone association is looking for ways to increase relevance. Every funeral home wants to find ways to connect with families before a death occurs. Every vendor wants more meaningful presentation engagement. A Consumer Day accomplishes all three.
This is in no way a criticism of our state and national conventions. They already do so many things exceptionally well. It's more of a question or a challenge to imagine what these events could become.
Sometimes the biggest innovations aren't found in a new product on the exhibit floor. Sometimes they're found by opening the doors to the people we're all there to serve.
The funeral profession has never lacked innovation. Perhaps what it needs now is a little more inclusion. Getting there ins't as simple as just opening the doors - but through discussion, this change could be inevitable.
And really the question isn't whether consumers belong at our conventions.
It's just about working together and figuring out a way to make it happen. ๐
