Hi Barry.....

>One thing that should be considered here is the "Net Good" another conference does for the community. While "regional" conferences like "Whil-fest", "Val-fest", and what has alternately become know as "Barry-con" have found their niche in the community as cost-effective alternatives to larger conferences, like Advisor DevCon, there is certainly a net-good to be derived from two major national DevCons.

I think the regional Cons are a GREAT idea, don't get me wrong.

>Regional conferences have their own set of advantages. I certainly can't speak for Val or Whil, but I can address it from the viewpoint of my conference. Some of my attendees come from corporate environments while others are independent developers. Both sets of attendees benefit from the fact that my conference occurs (mostly) on the weekend, thereby keeping "lost" hours (whether from missing part of the "8-5" week of the corporate world or lost billable hours to an independent) to a minimum. Furthermore, some of my attendees just can't afford to go to larger conferences.

Another spectacular idea, holding a Con over a weekend.

>Let's think about the two larger conferences for the year 2000. The last Advisor DevCon drew about 1200 attendees from the community. If the attendance for the September DevCon falls off by 200-300 (max.) but the May conference attracts 600-700 attendees, so that the total attendance for both conference approaches 2,000 attendees...hasn't the good of the community been served by getting the "word/gospel" to a larger audience, thereby strengthening our numbers?

The last DevCon drew 1800. You are assuming that there would be a net gain in con attendance of about 400. I don't see it; I wish I did. The same people will be trying to draw from the same financial well deciding which con to go to. And, worse yet, they are competing cons. With VBITS, at least they same company is running them coordinatively.