Hi Doug,

I see where you're going with this. IMHO, if it's a rah-rah marketing thing then it is an expense to the software publisher(s). But the tech people who work for the software publisher may not be the best real world experts. For that, you usually will see a professional conference organizer put something together. This gets more expensive. Either way, look at TechEd. It's sort of a rah-rah thing but it's still expensive and I think an attendee would get much more hard-core tech stuff from ... say ... SQL Connections.

George Tasker and I had an idea a few years ago: Have a one-day BBQ and invite everyone to do impromptu sessions on stuff and hold the expense down to what the park wanted to rent the facilities and lunch (like $50 per person). I'd still like to see something like that done.

>Interesting questions. Is that the purpose of a conference, a for-profit undertaking, or is it supposed to be a marketing expense to spread the word about your product?
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>And what is your target audience, the professional conference attendees, or the working-in-the-trenches users that carry a lot of weight in specirying your product?