---
title: "Unplugged: The Future is Human"
description: The Future Is Human is a offline, phone-free day in LA where presence is the practice and connection is the outcome. Hosted by Mark Groves x The Gathering.
---
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**You know the feeling.**
You're in a room full of people, and everyone's looking down.
Conversations interrupted by pings, the reflexive reach for the pocket.
You leave with hundreds of "connections" and somehow feel more alone.
We've built a world where we can reach anyone, anywhere, instantly. And yet true presence has become the scarcest resource we have.
**Unplugged: The Future Is Human** is a 5-hour, fully offline experience designed to help you remember what real connection actually feels like in your body. Not as a concept. Not as content. As a lived, felt experience.
This is a room where phones are off. Actually collected and put away...so that for once, every person in the space is fully, undividedly present.
## WHAT TO EXPECT:
You'll hear from **Mark Groves** and curated speakers on why our biology craves real connection, how technology has rewired our attention, and what it takes to build relationships that matter.
You'll participate in connection exercises designed not to perform vulnerability, but to practice it. You'll have conversations that don't get interrupted mid-sentence by notifications.
You'll discover what happens when everyone agrees to just **be here now.**
There will be nourishing food and drinks. Sauna and cold plunge. Space to think. Space to breathe. No pressure to post about it, capture it, or turn it into content. Just the rare luxury of being fully offline, together.
## In this experience, you will...
- **Step fully offline for 5 hours** and feel what presence does to your nervous system
- **Learn from Mark Groves and guest speakers** on relationships, attention, technology, and human connection
- **Practice real conversation** in a room where no one is half-listening to their phone
- **Connect with creators, founders, and thoughtful humans** navigating the same tension you are
- **Regulate your nervous system** through breathwork, sauna, cold plunge, and embodied practices
- **Discover tools and approaches** to reclaim your attention without going off-grid
- **Leave with friends, not followers**—real relationships, not just connections
- **Walk out knowing how to shift your relationship with technology** so it serves you, not the other way around
## The Flow
**9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
VIP MASTERMIND EXPERIENCE** *(VIP Mastermind ticket holders only)*
- Morning reset: sauna, cold plunge, and MUD\\WTR ritual
- Deep-dive sessions with Mark Groves + Gathering community
- Off-the-record, high-trust conversations
- Cultural content that fuels clarity and connection
**4:00 PM – 6:00 PM**
**FIRESIDE SESSIONS** *(Included with both VIP Dinner + Mastermind tickets)*
- Intimate, unfiltered dialogue hosted by Mark Groves
- No stage. No filters. Just truth in real time.
**6:00 PM – 9:00 PM**
**VIP DINNER**
- Curated long-table meal
- Shared stories, resonance, and connection
- This is where the masks come off
## Meet the Speakers
### Mark Groves
Human Connection Specialist
### Sarah Baldwin
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner
### Branden Collinsworth
Writer, Athlete, Speaker
### Mandy Balak
Experience Designer
## Offline VIP Long Table Dinner Experience
For those who want to go deeper, the Offline VIP experience invites you into an intimate, sensory evening beginning with a 2-hour fireside session, followed by a curated mocktail connection happy hour, and a 3 course long table dinner experience with 50 people maximum, hosted by Mark and friends.
Long tables are where magic happens. Where strangers become allies. Where ideas spark movements. Where we remember we're not alone.
Every detail is intentional: the lighting, the textures, the way the table is set, the food you taste, the conversations you have. You'll share a meal designed to be felt, not just eaten. You'll ask questions that don't get asked at networking events. You'll be seen—not as a profile or brand, but as a whole, complex, interesting human.
By the end of the night, strangers won't feel like strangers anymore. You'll leave with real friends. The kind you actually text. The kind who remember your name and what you care about.
The bridge back to each other starts here. At a longer table.
[SOLD OUT](https://go.thegatheringfestival.com/the-future-is-human-waitlist)
[Skip To Pass Options](https://go.thegatheringfestival.com/unplugged-thefutureishuman#Ticket-Options)
LOCATION
## MUD\\WTR GATHER
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
MUD\\WTR Gather is a community wellness space in Santa Monica—two blocks from the beach—where world-class mushroom coffee, breathwork, movement, and connection-focused events come together to build healthy minds, healthy practices, and maybe a few new friends.
## VIP Mastermind: Full Day Experience
**For the 25 who want to go all the way in.**
If you want to start the start the day were the masks come off, with a group of legends before the rest of the attendees arrive, this is it.
Start the day with a **reset ritual-**sauna, cold plunge, and a MUD\\WTR moment. Followed by a deep dive **mastermind conversation** — bold, embodied, unrecorded, where a small group gathers for something rare: a half-day mastermind designed not to inspire you and send you home, but to equip you with the clarity, tools, and community to actually expand and thrive in your real life.
This isn't about motivation. It's about implementation. Boundaries that protect your aliveness. Creativity without burnout. Leadership that doesn't demand you perform a version of yourself that isn't true.
Led by **Mark Groves** and joined by **business leaders, founders, and creators actually in the trenches**—people building companies with soul, leading teams with presence, navigating the same tension between growth and groundedness that you are—this experience is built on one simple truth:
**You can't do this alone.**
---
### What Happens
You'll start the day with a reset ritual, then gather where the conversation is deep and everyone in the room is willing to be honest about what's actually hard.
Then we go deeper.
**The mastermind session explores:**
- How to set boundaries that protect your energy without killing your ambition
- How to lead with full aliveness in a world that rewards numbing out
- How to build a sustainable relationship with technology, creativity, and your nervous system
- Real stories from founders navigating the same challenges—openly, without the highlight reel
You'll hear from people who've built businesses, raised capital, created movements—not in spite of being human, but because they chose to stay human. They'll share what's working, what's not, and what they wish someone had told them sooner.
Then you'll work. Together. On the real questions keeping you stuck.
**Because the answers you need are already in the room.** They're in the collective wisdom of people who've walked a similar path, failed differently, and learned hard lessons.
In the evening you'll participate in a intimate, sensory evening beginning with a 2-hour fireside session, followed by a curated mocktail connection happy hour, and a 3 course long table dinner experience with 50 people maximum, hosted by Mark and friends.
---
### Why Masterminds Work
You already know what you *should* do. What you're missing isn't more information. It's **context, community, and accountability.**
People in high-trust communities perform better, recover faster, and sustain growth longer. Not because they're more talented. Because they're not doing it alone.
---
### Who This Is For
Founders, creators, and leaders who are:
- Building something that matters and refusing to burn out doing it
- Ready to lead with full aliveness—in business, relationships, and life
- Done with surface-level networking and ready for real, generative relationships
- Willing to be honest about what's hard and humble enough to learn from others
---
### What You'll Leave With
- **Clarity** on the next right move in your work and life
- **Tools** for boundaries, nervous system regulation, and staying present under pressure
- **New friends and collaborators** who remember your name and show up when it counts
- **A community** walking the same path, committed to each other's success
- **Confidence** that you don't have to choose between thriving and being human
And most importantly: **you'll leave knowing you're not alone.**
$ 350
### VIP: Long Table Dinner
**WHATS INCLUDED:**
Access to a VIP evening from 4-9 PM
- A 2-hour fireside session before dinner.
- Happy hour and connection time
- Intimate long table dinner (50 people max)
- Sensory dining experience designed to activate what screens can't touch
- Deep conversations hosted by Mark Groves
- Curated evening where every detail is intentional
- Connect with founders, creators, and leaders on a deeper level
- Leave with real friends, not just followers
- The bridge back to each other starts at a longer table
***Feb 28: VIP Experience: 4–9 PM***
[SOLD OUT](https://go.thegatheringfestival.com/the-future-is-human-waitlist)
$ 1,500
### VIP: MASTERMIND
**WHATS INCLUDED:
EVERYTHING IN VIP DINNER, PLUS:**
- Start your morning with a sauna & cold plunge experience.
- Followed by deep dive, small-group work and connection.
- Limited to 25 people
- Led by Mark Groves + special guest business leaders and founders
- Shared meal + deep-dive session on boundaries, creativity, and thriving with full aliveness
- Practical frameworks for leading with presence
- Intimate community of people walking the same path
- Ongoing access and connection with fellow mastermind members
- The room where real transformation happens
***Feb 28: Mastermind Morning + VIP Dinner***
[JOIN THE WAITLIST](https://go.thegatheringfestival.com/the-future-is-human-waitlist)
[Sign Up for Information on Upcoming Events](https://go.thegatheringfestival.com/the-future-is-human-waitlist)
## About the Host
### Mark Groves
Human Connection Specialist
Mark Groves spent a decade teaching people how to love better. Then he had to learn how to live better.
After building a global audience of millions, writing books, and coaching thousands through breakups, breakthroughs, and everything in between, Mark experienced something that changed everything: a complete nervous system collapse. A psychotic break that forced him to ask the question that had been whispering for years: *At what cost?*
The cost was his presence. His clarity. His connection to himself.
The wake-up call wasn't subtle. It was a full system shutdown—the kind that makes you realize you've been optimizing for the wrong things. Building an audience while losing yourself. Teaching presence while living distracted. Preaching authenticity while being interrupted 200 times a day by a device you can't put down.
Mark's work has always been about helping people show up more fully in their relationships. Now, he's addressing the addiction that's making that nearly impossible: **our smartphones.**
The research is clear. Dopamine pathways hijacked. Creativity crushed. Attention fractured. Real connection replaced by endless scrolling. We're more digitally connected than ever—and lonelier than we've ever been.
Mark isn't asking you to go off-grid. He's asking you to come back to yourself. To reclaim your brain, your creativity, your ability to sit with someone you love without checking your phone. To remember what it feels like to be bored, to think deeply, to be present.
This is the work that almost cost him everything. Now, it's the work he's here to do.
YOU MAY NEED TO KNOW
## Frequently Asked Questions
What is Unplugged – The Future is Human?
A one-day, high-signal experience curated by Mark Groves and The Gathering. It’s not a conference. It’s a human-centered space for leaders, creators, and community builders to connect deeply, reset intentionally, and build what lasts.
Where and when is it happening?
**Saturday, February 28** at **MUD\\WTR:Gather** in Santa Monica, California.
Is this a full-day event?
Yes. The event runs from **9:00 AM–9:00 PM**, with two ways to participate depending on your ticket type.
Is there a General Admission ticket?
No. There are two ticket options VIP and VIP: Mastermind.
Can I upgrade my ticket later?
Yes — if space allows. Mastermind and Dinner capacities are limited to keep the rooms small and intentional.
What is the vibe?
Real people. Real rooms. No stages. No panels. This is sacred, not scheduled. Expect intimacy, intention, and bold conversations — not noise.
What if i have other questions?
Email us at community@thegatheringfestival.com.
---
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