I'm sorry to hear about it, Muman
I hope next year you make it to the community event.
There were several lectures going on where I was. None of the topics interested me. It was all about either about gerut, dairy and sadly there was even a lecture in a shul about Donald Sterling's words! I would have been happy to stay in and study.
There was one lecture that was a little far away in a shul where my bf and I ended up going and even though I fell asleep on and off for the first few minutes, I actually woke up and started to listen to the lecture going on. And I was blown away!! The speaker was a Rabbi Shimon Kessin and he spoke for the entire night. I recommend everyone to check him out! His lecture was powerful.
Here is a short video I found of him online. Talking about the insanity of Iran getting away with what they do and their threats to destroy Israel, Purim repeating itself, and about the insanity of Obama having been elected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdH11_pZKnEHis lectures at the shul was about Israel (if Israel would come to Torah, the arabs would back away), Moshiach, Sinat Chinam and I don't recall the first one (when I was dozing off).