Today is 14th March'19 and the only upcoming contest being shown in the contests list is on 6th April'19. Please conduct more contests soon. It is really exciting to participate in these contests.
Edit1: Now, a new contest has been added in the list.
Hope to see Codeforces contests soon.
Finally, a new contest added in the list which would be conducted on 21st March'19. Hope to see more.
Virtual participation?
Yes, I agree. Virtual participation is always possible, but the competitive spirit is quite high in live contests.
Just imagine you're competing in the real contest, literally the only difference then is rating.
Yes. Ofcourse, rating is an important external motivator.
Comes down to whether you want to just successfully solve problems or a visible measure of that success. Of course, since training means a chance to get higher rating, no rated contests should be taken as an opportunity to prepare for rated contests.
Now it's not :)