NextFest launched in 2004 in San Francisco, where Wired is based, and took place in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago in subsequent years. Its backers have included blue-chippers General Electric, Hewlett-Packard and Toyota. The event has also generated dozens of ad pages for Wired.

But as advertisers have traded big, multiple-sponsor programs for pared-down ones, magazines have canceled some of their tent-pole events. Along those lines, Wired parent Condé Nast canceled Fashion Rocks and Movies Rock events, its marquee cross-platform marketing programs, for 2009.