dbt Summit 2026 (formerly Coalesce): Overview & Attendee Guide

Quick show of hands: who remembers Coalesce? If you've been in analytics engineering for more than a year, you do. The annual conference that the dbt community grew up around has a new name in 2026. It's now dbt Summit (formerly Coalesce), and it's happening September 15-18 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

If you came here searching for "Coalesce 2026," you're in the right place. Same conference, same community, new name. This guide covers the basics, who should go, the live agenda and speaker lineup, pricing, training and certification, logistics, and how Rollstack fits into the analytics stack the conference is built around.

TL;DR

• dbt Summit 2026 is the rebranded Coalesce. Same conference, same dbt Labs team, new positioning as the analytics-engineering and AI-data summit rather than purely a dbt user conference.
• The basics: September 15-18, 2026, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. 100+ sessions across keynotes, breakouts, hands-on labs, and peer exchanges. Digital and on-demand access is included with registration.
• Pricing: Standard registration is $1,695 through August 17; Last Chance pricing is $1,895 from August 18 through onsite. Discounted tickets exist for students, nonprofits, bootstrapped companies, government, EDU, and groups of 3+.
• The agenda is live. Tracks include analytics engineering best practices, dbt at scale, Winning with Fusion, powering AI-ready data, building agentic data workflows, data modernization, and delivering business outcomes.
• For teams whose dbt-modeled data needs to land in PowerPoint, Google Slides, or recurring stakeholder reports, Rollstack automates that delivery layer, connecting your BI tool to slide and document templates that refresh on schedule.

The Basics

• Dates: September 15-18, 2026
• Venue: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
• Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
• Format: In-person programming with digital and on-demand access included
• Standard ticket: $1,695 through August 17; Last Chance pricing is $1,895 from August 18 through onsite
• Training and certification: Free limited spots available with registration; certification add-ons available
• Partner Day: Tuesday, September 15, reserved for Fivetran + dbt Labs partners
• Best for: Analytics engineers, data engineers, data leaders, BI teams, platform teams, and executives working on AI-ready data

The ticket covers more than session access. Registration includes keynotes, breakouts, the hands-on Discovery Hall experiences, Expert Lounge access, live Q&A, product announcements, networking events, and the training and certification opportunities below. Register or check the latest agenda at the official page: getdbt.com/dbt-summit.

What is dbt?

If you're reading this, you probably already know. But for completeness: dbt (data build tool) is the standard transformation layer of the modern data stack. Analytics engineers use it to model, test, and document data inside the warehouse, turning raw tables into the clean, governed datasets that business intelligence tools query downstream.

dbt has become close to non-negotiable for teams running Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, or Redshift at any meaningful scale. The dbt community is large, the Slack is active, and the ecosystem of tools that sit alongside dbt has grown into its own category.

For data teams, dbt solves the trust problem upstream: clean models, documented logic, tested transformations, and governed metrics. But most stakeholders never open a dbt model. They consume board decks, QBRs, operating reviews, investor updates, and client reports.

That's where Rollstack fits. Rollstack sits downstream of the dbt-modeled warehouse and the BI layer, then turns trusted dashboard data into refreshed PowerPoint, Google Slides, Word, and Google Docs outputs, whether that's a board deck, an investor update, or automated client reporting. For teams heading to dbt Summit, the question isn't only "how do we model the data?" It's also "how do we make sure the modeled data reaches the rooms where decisions actually happen?"

What is dbt Summit, formerly Coalesce?

Coalesce launched in 2020 as the dbt community's annual gathering. The first event ran fully online (pandemic timing), and by Coalesce 2021 attendance had grown to roughly 7,000 practitioners. It became the largest event for analytics engineers worldwide. For 2026, dbt Labs renamed it to dbt Summit.

The rebrand reflects what the conference has become. Coalesce launched when the question was "should we use dbt?" The audience now extends well beyond dbt users to anyone working on the analytics layer of the modern data stack, including the AI and data platform teams that have moved into adjacent territory. dbt Labs positioned the rename as a shift from a community conference into a premier industry summit. Same DNA, broader audience.

What stays the same: the practitioner-forward tone, the analytics engineering community at the center, the dbt Slack as the unofficial second venue, and the dbt Labs team running it. What changes: the name, the framing toward AI-native data work, and the scale of the production.

In brief: dbt Summit is the rebranded Coalesce. Same dbt Labs team, same community, same general format and cadence. The name changed in 2026 to reflect a broader positioning beyond the dbt user community toward the analytics engineering and AI-data audience as a whole. If your team still calls it Coalesce, you're not wrong, you're just a year behind on the branding. The hashtags, the Slack, and the muscle memory will take a while to catch up, and that's fine.

Who should attend dbt Summit 2026?

dbt Summit is most useful for teams that already have dbt in production or are actively standardizing their analytics engineering workflow. dbt Labs frames the program around three audiences: data practitioners, data leaders, and business leaders or executives.

The conference is worth prioritizing for:

• Analytics engineers who want practical patterns for testing, documentation, modeling, semantic layers, CI, and dbt project structure.
• Data engineers and platform teams working on scale, governance, cost control, migrations, dbt Mesh, Fusion, and AI-ready data architectures.
• Heads of data and analytics leaders who need to benchmark team structure, quality standards, and AI readiness against other modern data teams.
• BI and reporting teams whose dashboards, metrics, and stakeholder decks depend on dbt-modeled data.
• Executives and business leaders who care less about dbt syntax and more about trusted data, faster decisions, and measurable business outcomes.
• Partners and ecosystem vendors who sell into the dbt, Fivetran, warehouse, BI, governance, and data-quality ecosystem.

If your team is brand new to dbt, the event is still useful, but spend your budget on the training and certification sessions rather than the advanced architecture talks.

Agenda Overview

The dbt Summit agenda is live, and the best way to plan your week is by track rather than by session count. The program spans keynotes, breakouts, peer exchanges, hands-on labs, training, and certification. Here are the tracks to prioritize.

Analytics engineering best practices

Best for analytics engineers and BI-adjacent data teams. Expect practical sessions on project structure, testing, documentation, quality, governance, and how mature teams keep dbt maintainable as usage grows.

dbt at scale

Best for platform teams, heads of data, and enterprise analytics teams. Prioritize this track if your biggest problems are ownership, permissions, team boundaries, cost, CI, and scaling dbt across multiple domains.

Winning with Fusion

Best for teams evaluating dbt Fusion or planning a migration path. This is likely one of the most important tracks for existing dbt teams, because it connects product direction to real workflow changes.

Powering AI-ready data

Best for teams under pressure to support AI, self-service analytics, conversational BI, or governed data products. The useful question here isn't "how do we use AI?" but "is our modeled data trustworthy enough for AI to use?"

Building agentic data workflows

Best for technical data teams experimenting with MCP tools, copilots, and AI agents that interact with dbt projects. This is the track to watch if your team wants AI-assisted development without losing lineage, metrics, review, and governance.

Data modernization and emerging architectures

Best for teams migrating legacy pipelines, consolidating warehouses, evaluating mesh patterns, or modernizing around Iceberg and adjacent architectures.

Delivering business outcomes

Best for data leaders and executives. These sessions are less about syntax and more about how data teams prove ROI, reduce incidents, control spend, and turn trusted data into decisions.

Speakers to Watch

The 2026 speaker list pairs dbt Labs and Fivetran leadership with practitioners from companies across retail, finance, healthcare, SaaS, media, gaming, and the nonprofit world.

Headlining are Tristan Handy (co-founder and president, Fivetran + dbt Labs) and George Fraser (co-founder and CEO, Fivetran + dbt Labs). The combined company is the through-line this year, and it's what anchors Partner Day too. Beyond the keynotes, the practitioner lineup includes names like Nadine Bruxel of Nordstrom and Silja Märdla of Bolt, plus speakers from companies including Planned Parenthood, Docusign, Bilt, ING, WHOOP, Ramp, Riot Games, Figma, Virgin Media O2, Philip Morris International, and HubSpot.

The practitioner sessions are the reason to go. Keynotes get written up everywhere within a week; the breakout where someone running a data team your size walks through exactly what they changed, what broke, and what worked is the part you can't get from a recap.

Training and Certification at dbt Summit

Registered attendees can claim free access to a limited number of training and certification sessions at checkout, with spots filling on a first-come basis. Training options on offer include:

• Getting started with dbt
• Becoming a dbt Architect
• Mastering data quality with dbt
• Operationalize cost visibility in dbt
• Governed and scalable AI-assisted analytics with dbt
• Upgrade to dbt v2

If you're sending a team, claim training spots during registration rather than waiting until you arrive. The certification add-ons are one of the more concrete ways to justify the trip internally, especially for newer analytics engineers.

Partner Day

Partner Day is Tuesday, September 15, 2026, reserved for Fivetran + dbt Labs partners. The day runs executive, partner, product, and sales content for the ecosystem of vendors and consultancies that build on or sell alongside dbt and Fivetran. Partner Day attendees still need to be registered for dbt Summit itself. If you work for a partner in the warehouse, BI, governance, or data-quality space, this is the day to build into your travel plans.

Is dbt Summit 2026 worth it?

For most teams already using dbt, yes, especially if you're trying to scale analytics engineering beyond one central data team.

The strongest case for attending isn't the keynote content. Product announcements get summarized online within days. The value is in the working sessions: how other teams structure dbt projects, handle ownership, govern metrics, reduce incidents, manage warehouse cost, migrate legacy transformation logic, and prepare modeled data for AI use cases.

The conference is most worth it if you are:

• Scaling dbt across multiple teams or business units
• Evaluating dbt Fusion, dbt Mesh, semantic-layer workflows, or AI-ready data patterns
• Trying to standardize analytics engineering practices across a growing org
• Building a stronger bridge between governed data and business-facing reporting
• Looking for peers who have already solved the problems your team is about to hit

It may be less urgent if your team is brand new to dbt and still learning fundamentals, unless you use the training and certification opportunities while you're there.

Pricing and Registration

Registration is open, and the tiers step up as the event approaches:

• Super Early Bird: $595 (saved $1,300 off Last Chance; window closed)
• Early Bird: $795 (saved $1,100 off Last Chance; window closed)
• Standard: $1,695, available June 2 through August 17
• Last Chance: $1,895, from August 18 through onsite

Special pricing is also available:

• Student / Nonprofit / Bootstrapper: $595
• Government / EDU: $795
• Groups of 3+ from the same company: 25% off

Prices and windows can shift, so confirm the live tier on the official dbt Summit registration page before you book. Registration has historically moved quickly, and dbt Labs has run a waitlist in prior cycles, so don't sit on it if you already know you're going.

Hotels and Travel for dbt Summit 2026

The host hotel is The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, and dbt Labs has secured a discounted room rate with limited availability. Start with the official booking link before checking third-party hotel sites. The discount is meaningful, and rolling out of bed into the conference is its own argument.

The Cosmopolitan sits on the Strip between Bellagio and Aria, so nearby alternatives include Aria, Bellagio, Vdara (quieter, no casino), Park MGM, and other CityCenter-area hotels. Staying nearby matters more than it looks on a map: Las Vegas walking distances are deceptive, and September convention traffic can make short rides slow.

For airport transportation, plan on Uber, Lyft, or taxi from Harry Reid International Airport, about a 10 to 15 minute ride from the venue. Taxis from the airport to the Strip charge a flat fee, which can make them simpler than rideshare during peak arrival times.

September is convention season in Las Vegas. Book early. The good rooms go fast, and the same week often has overlapping events competing for inventory.

Practical Tips for dbt Summit Attendees

• Build your schedule around the labs and breakouts, not the keynotes. Keynotes will be on the dbt Labs YouTube channel within weeks. The labs and smaller practitioner sessions are the unrepeatable part, and the hands-on labs are historically the most over-subscribed format. Reserve early.
• Show up in the dbt Slack before you arrive. The unofficial schedule, side events, and meet-ups all coordinate there. Use the #dbt-summit-irl channel to connect with people in person. If you're not in the dbt Slack yet, join the dbt community here.
• Claim training and certification at checkout. Free spots are limited and they go before the event, not at the door.
• Vegas distance is deceptive. Give yourself 20 minutes between sessions in different parts of the venue, and longer if you're crossing to another hotel for a side event.
• Layer up. Las Vegas conference centers are aggressively air-conditioned. Bring a long sleeve or a hoodie even if you're flying in from somewhere warm.
• Hydrate. Vegas air is dry and conference air is recycled. Carry a water bottle. Discovery Hall has meals and the Welcome Reception, but the floor doesn't remind you to drink water.
• Pace your evenings. The instinct is to do dinner and a late night every night. Don't. Day 3 is when the best community conversations happen, and you'll regret being exhausted for them.
• Take notes by topic, not by session. Future-you needs one synthesis page, not six separate sets of notes on incremental models.
• Talk to people. The dbt community is one of the more welcoming ones in data. Sit at a table with people you don't know and ask what they're working on. The sessions are great; the hallway conversations are usually better.

dbt Summit Dress Code

Tech-casual. The unofficial uniform is jeans, a t-shirt or polo, comfortable sneakers, and a backpack. dbt swag is common; you'll see plenty of vendor shirts from the sponsor ecosystem. Some vendor parties get dressier, but you'll always look fine in conference attire.

The two non-negotiables: shoes you can walk in, and something warm enough to survive the AC. Everything else is optional.

Where Rollstack Fits in the dbt Ecosystem

dbt gives analytics teams a governed transformation layer. BI tools visualize the governed outputs. Rollstack automates the final delivery layer: the recurring presentations and documents that executives, clients, finance teams, and operators actually use.

dbt makes metrics trustworthy. Rollstack makes those trusted metrics usable in the reporting that gets read. That makes Rollstack especially relevant for dbt Summit attendees working on:

• Board and executive reporting
• Customer or client QBRs
• Weekly business reviews
• Investor updates
• Regional or business-unit reporting
• Automated KPI packs built from governed warehouse data
• High-volume decks that need to be personalized by account, region, or stakeholder group

Here's the mechanics. Rollstack connects to whichever BI tool sits on top of your dbt-built warehouse (Tableau, Power BI, Looker, Metabase, Omni, Lightdash, Google Sheets) and pushes the live data into PowerPoint, Google Slides, Word, or Google Docs on a schedule. One template can produce 100+ client-specific or region-specific versions in a single run.

The most common objection is reasonable: "our BI tool already exports to PowerPoint." Static exports exist. They don't refresh, don't schedule, don't distribute, and don't scale to fifty client decks. Rollstack handles the full cycle, which is the part most teams still do by hand.

For a concrete example: SoFi's finance team uses Rollstack to compress its review-cycle slide prep from 6 hours to 45 minutes. Same underlying data, same decision in the room, far less work in between. Customers like TripAdvisor, T. Rowe Price, and Vanta run similar workflows for board and exec reporting, and G2 rates Rollstack #1 in Quality of Support in its category.

If you're at dbt Summit thinking about the gap between your dbt-built warehouse and the slides your stakeholders read, the broader report generation in the modern data stack framing covers how this fits.

Livestream, Digital Access, and On-Demand Sessions

dbt Summit registration includes digital and on-demand access, so the recorded sessions are part of the ticket rather than a separate virtual pass. Historically the keynotes are the most likely to be livestreamed or posted to the dbt Labs YouTube channel after the event, while breakouts and labs are hit-and-miss for recording. The hallway conversations and Discovery Hall experiences aren't recorded at all, which is the case for attending in person if you can.

For the sessions that do get recorded, expect them to land within a few weeks. Watch the official dbt Summit page or subscribe to the dbt Labs newsletter for the post-event recording drop.

dbt Summit 2026 FAQ

When is dbt Summit 2026? dbt Summit 2026 runs September 15-18, 2026.

Where is dbt Summit 2026? The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip. About a 10 to 15 minute ride from Harry Reid International Airport by rideshare or taxi.

Is dbt Summit the same as Coalesce? Yes. dbt Summit is the rebranded Coalesce. Same dbt Labs team, same community, same general format. The name changed in 2026 to reflect a broader positioning beyond the dbt user community toward the analytics engineering and AI-data audience as a whole.

Why did Coalesce rename to dbt Summit? dbt Labs positioned the rename as a shift from a community conference into a premier industry summit. The audience and topics have expanded beyond dbt users to anyone building on the modern data stack, with 2026's theme leaning into the convergence of analytics and AI.

How much is dbt Summit 2026? Standard registration is $1,695 through August 17, 2026. Last Chance pricing is $1,895 from August 18 through onsite. Discounted tickets are available for students, nonprofit professionals, bootstrapped companies, government employees, EDU employees, and groups of 3+ from the same company. Check the official registration page for the live tier.

Is training included with dbt Summit registration? dbt Labs says registered attendees can claim free access to a limited number of training and certification sessions at checkout. Spots are limited, so claim them when you register.

What is dbt Summit Partner Day? Partner Day is Tuesday, September 15, 2026, and is reserved for Fivetran + dbt Labs partners. Partner Day attendees must also be registered for dbt Summit.

Is dbt Summit good for data leaders? Yes. The event includes tracks for data practitioners, data leaders, and business leaders, including sessions on AI-ready data, enterprise scale, governance, modernization, and business outcomes.

Is dbt Summit good for beginners? It can be, especially if you use the training sessions. Beginners should prioritize "Getting started with dbt," hands-on labs, and practitioner sessions rather than trying to attend every advanced architecture talk.

Is there financial support to attend dbt Summit? Yes. The dbt Summit Community Grant covers a complimentary conference ticket, complimentary lodging, and a travel stipend, plus extras like breakfast with dbt Labs co-founder Tristan Handy and a dedicated Community Team contact. It's aimed at people facing financial or access barriers. Apply on the dbt Summit Community Grant page. (dbt Labs has also said a separate scholarship program will launch later in the year.)

What are the main dbt Summit 2026 tracks? The official tracks include analytics engineering best practices, dbt at scale, Winning with Fusion, powering AI-ready data, building agentic data workflows, delivering business outcomes, and data modernization and emerging architectures.

Will dbt Summit be virtual or livestreamed? Digital and on-demand access is included with registration. Some sessions, especially keynotes, are typically livestreamed or recorded for the dbt Labs YouTube channel. The in-person experience covers hands-on labs and community events that don't translate to video.

What should I wear to dbt Summit? Tech-casual. Jeans, a t-shirt or polo, comfortable sneakers, a backpack. Bring a layer for the AC. Vendor parties sometimes get dressier, but conference attire works everywhere.

Going to dbt Summit 2026? Have a great week in Las Vegas. And if you're thinking about what happens to your dbt-modeled data once it leaves the warehouse, book a Rollstack demo. We'll show you how the slides update themselves.