We are just under two weeks out from our sixth ATS London event – and we have only a handful of tickets remaining. This year's ATS London is coming at a time of huge change in our industry.

As programmatic media buying and selling has become the norm, constituent players (publishers, agencies, and marketers) have had to not only review their media buying and selling strategy, but also their commercial structures. This continues to be a pain point for many of the aforementioned.

Added to this industry uncertainty is the immediate future of many of those ad tech vendors that facilitate real time trading. Many are at a crossroads. Can they remain independent? Or will they be subsumed into the massive scaled media businesses of Facebook and Google, who continue to pursue a walled-garden approach?

There is also outlier risks – like the inexorable rise of ad blocking – which is now causing serious problems for both publishers and advertisers.

I honestly can't quite remember a time when the industry wrestled with so many intangibles – and it is for this reason alone why ATS London will be the must-attend event this year.

As a taster, I want to go through some of the top class content we have planned for this year's event. If you haven't got ticket, you need to buy one as seats are limited.

Ad Tech in Transition

There has been a lot of VC funding raised in the ad tech space over the past seven years to build the real time infrastructure which enables programmatic advertising. Some of these companies have been acquired or IPO'd. Most are on the cusp of either a successful exit or annihilation.

The reckoning for ad tech that has been promised for many years is finally upon us.

What will happen? Consolidation of the ecosystem? A move to open platforms, enabling both point solutions and service businesses to operate? Or a regressive step backwards to the walled-garden?

Our first part of the day will be devoted to these very discussion points. Our show will be opened this year by Luma's Terence Kawaja, the industry's foremost M&A banker and ecosystem chart guru. Kawaja will provide an overview on industry trends.

This will then dovetail into a broader discussion on the future direction of advertising technology, and the role it will play in the coming years.

This panel discussion will include Terry Kawaja and industry stalwarts Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus) and Bill Wise (CEO, Mediaocean). This heavyweight debate will look at subjects like SaaS, open versus closed ecosystems, and the viability of independent ad tech.

The Agency & Client Programmatic Needs

Our ATS events often get criticised for not giving clients more of a platform to articulate their requirements around tech, data, and programmatic. It is a fair criticism, but the reality is often a little more complicated.

We have tried for years to get brands to speak publicly at our various events globally – but the majority have simply outsourced these capabilities to their agencies hence the dearth of brands speaking at industry events.

Given the increased use of first-party data in programmatic, and the inevitable convergence of martech and ad tech, more marketers are now implementing strategies to leverage tech and data for their marketing activities.

Reflecting this shift, ATS London will be hosting its first all-marketer panel. The senior marketers from eBay, Fiat Chrysler, and ActivInstinct will doubtless drive some excellent debate from the one constituent that matters most in the industry, namely the marketer.

Outsourcing has also been a feature within the holding groups – with centralised buying units (ATDs) becoming the go-to for programmatic execution. With this capability now being baked into media planning of the OpCos, we seeing a different strategy from agencies as they move away from the black box that caused such a furore in the early days of programmatic.

We are delighted to host senior executives from Havas, Starcom, and Maxus to get the inside track on agency strategy.

The Rise of the Ad Blocker & Publisher Rejuvenation

The industry is in a right fluster about the rise of ad blocking. It is the great calamity of our time, the trades would have you believe. Don't get me wrong, it is certainly a concern, particularly for publishers who have built their economic model on ad-funded content – but how big is the problem?

To discuss the ad blocking phenomenon, we have assembled speakers from both sides of the debate: from ad blockers, ad blocker blockers, legal, to affected publishers. This discussion will be ably moderated by Jim Edwards, founding editor of Business Insider UK.

While publishers continue to face problems like ad blocking and mobile monetisation, many of the top tier have gotten to grips with programmatic.

In a wide ranging discussion around strategy, data management and tech implementation, panel moderator, ExchangeWire's contributing editor Wendy Hogan will chair a discussion with a range of top publishers, including Telegraph Media Group, CNN, The Guardian, and Zoopla.

What else should you look out for at this year's ATS London?

We suggest you also keep an eye out for the following:

 – The big Oracle DMP report, and discussion around best practices for DMP use
– The annual Dr Boris lecture as he goes deep into the weeds on ad tech
– Catherine Williams' (chief data scientist, AppNexus) keynote on how data should be leveraged in the trading environment
– Presentations on cross-device targeting and measurement from Atlas, comScore, and Kantar
– A debate on why the future of media buying is holistic with senior agency and vendor execs

It is an action-packed agenda, and we look forward to seeing you all at our sixth ATS London event. ATS London sells out every year, so be sure to get your ticket to avoid massive disappointment.