On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 09:02:06AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
First, $1500 per conference sounds way too high, even by today's inflated standards.
Tim, you haven't been to that many commercial conferences recently. I spoke at Internet World last month, and that's exactly how much it is. Even given the economic downturn, they haven't dropped the price. It's still $1,500 for the fall IW: http://www.internetworld.com/events/fall2001/conf_reg.php
Second, I can't believe there are 100 such conferences a year! If you are going to 2 conferences per week for most of a year, you're going to way too many conferences!
Maybe. But here in DC, there are scores of such conferences each year, and I could easily go to one or two a week. Some of my colleagues at other news organizations, like National Journal Tech Daily, do that. Even "nonprofit" conferences are still pricey: http://www.abanet.org/annual/2001/registration.html $650.00 http://www.cfp2001.org/php/control/main.php?l1=2 $685
Third, even scaling back the prices and numbers, I wasn't suggesting that no journalist be comped. Just that comping nearly a third or more of all attendees says something is out of whack.
Probably. Usually there are only a few (~20) journalists who are actually going to cover the event. -Declan