I went to a private MBL event and the actual owners/buyers there were in my age bracket and slightly older, which is 40s/50s.
Axpona, on the other hand, was likely more of a demo in their ~60/70s.
In my case, I had to plan months in advance to attend Axpona and blocked out a weekend. Despite this, I still was only able to attend Friday. It'd be very difficult to go to regular meetups or events, which I'd imagine is true for many working-age audiophiles.