I have been to a number of advanced lecture courses (of between 3 and 10 lectures) over the years, given (in principle) by experts to graduate students and experts in neighbouring fields. Examples of this are summer schools.

My impression is that this usually devolves into lectures given by experts in an area aimed at other experts in the same area. Graduate students are usually left by the wayside in lecture 1.

Is the whole endeavour futile? or do people have principles/suggestions to maximize the usefulness of advanced lecture series