Millions to watch global Latter-day Saint general conference this weekend

Tad Walch
·4 min read
4
Thousands begin gathering at the Conference Center for General Conference in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 6, 2024.
Thousands begin gathering at the Conference Center for General Conference in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 6, 2024.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

President Russell M. Nelson is expected to speak Saturday or Sunday during the 194th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

President Nelson is the church’s 17th prophet-president, and this will be the 13th conference of his tenure. He has been an apostle since 1984.

Earlier this week, President Nelson, who is 99, said some church leaders may make some concessions to age as they deliver messages that will be broadcast and livestreamed to millions worldwide. Latter-day Saint apostle is a lifetime calling.

“This means that you may see some of us during general conference speak while sitting down, or pre-record our message to be shared at the appropriate time, or even require a little assistance getting to and from our seats in the conference center,” President Nelson said in a social media post.

The conference consists of five sessions held over two days. Sessions will be held at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday and at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Speakers always include the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, health permitting. Other speakers come from among the church’s general officers and general authorities.

President Nelson’s conference sermons have focused on the atonement of Jesus Christ and his desires for each of God’s children. He has testified of Christ’s work on “both sides of the veil,” a reference to the gathering God’s children to participate in saving temple ordinances.

President Nelson, like past church presidents, has used conference addresses to deliver sermons, call for action, share information and announced new temples.

He has announced plans for 153 new temples since becoming church president in January 2018, At the time, 159 temples had been completed and 23 more had been announced.

Peter Compton and Carolina Hashimoto react to LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson's announcement that there will be seven new temples around the world, including one in Layton, Utah, during the Sunday afternoon session of the 188th Annual General Confe

The conference will originate from the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City across the street from historic Temple Square, where the iconic, refurbished and glistening Angel Moroni statue returned to the top of the Salt Lake Temple earlier this week.

Tickets are available for free from Latter-day Saint stake leaders.

Seating at the Conference Center, which has a capacity of about 20,000, will be limited to 18,000 people per session as a result of parking and accessibility concerns on and around Temple Square, according to the Church Communication Department.

The number of conferencegoers has been limited in recent years, first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the temple renovation project.

Some seats at recent conferences since the pandemic have not been filled, in part because an old conference standby — the standby line — has not been employed since the pandemic. Recently, both the standby line area and the overflow seating on Temple Square were inaccessible because of the temple renovation.

Now the standby line is back for the first time since October 2019. The line for both overflow seating on Temple Square and for potential access into the Conference Center will be at the Tabernacle on Temple Square.

Tim Fowers plays hymns on the bagpipe next to groups of people hoping to get tickets before the Sunday morning session of the 193rd Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. Fowers began playing the bagpipes outside of conference during the COVID-19 pandemic and thinks it’s a nice service to be able to provide for conferencegoers as they file in and out of sessions. | Megan Nielsen, Deseret News

Due to parking concerns, the church encourages conferencegoers to use public transit. A general conference ticket doubles as a ticket to ride UTA trains, buses and light rail that day.

The vast majority of participants, millions of them, will watch or listen by broadcast or livestream.

The majority of viewers participate in general conference from afar. All sessions will be broadcast live online in more than 70 languages on the church’s live broadcasts page, the General Conference YouTube channel, BYUtv.org, the Gospel Stream app and the Gospel Library app.

Conference can also be accessed through the Gospel Voice skill on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant devices.

For comprehensive coverage of conference announcements and talk summaries, visit Deseret News’ “General Conference” page and TheChurchNews.com.

Conference sessions and individual messages will be published for later studying on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, the Gospel Library app, the Gospel Stream app, the General Conference YouTube channel and in church magazines.