>PMFJI.. I'd think both. If the conference-holder doesn't make any $ then why bother? If the vendor(s) don't sell enough product to get an appropriate ROI then why bother?

The sales frequently coms long afer the conference, unless it is intended to be a flea market or software/hardware supermaket with a huge sale on.

>>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?
>
>Everyone. <g> From the CIO who's afraid to challenge conventional wisdom to the marketing folks who need to be educated on how various products enable productivity gains which = sales which = money to pay their mortgages, etc to the Gartner Groups of the world who seem to have the ability to look right at something and not understand its implications, and yet who charge lots of $ for what seems to me to be faulty advice.

Oh I see where this is going. So the conference is really about selling a specific application development packages to the CIO and Gartner types?
Forgive me, I misunderstood for many years now. What do CIOs and Gartner know about subtleties between development platforms? The social contact between developers is a side benefit too, I guess?


The last regional Conference I attended was put on by a Major software house on the West Coast, after a merger with another one on the east coast.
The vendor, even picked up the hotel cost (two nights), all meals and promotional materials. (pens, t-shirts, cases, door prizes, etc) Provided members of their engineering team to hold Q & A sessions to get inputs from us user group managers for enhancements and added features. We even had input into the pricing and licensing policies, and even received free development copies (not for resale) of their software, and CBT for the purpose of the user groups providing free programming training for their members. This was a rich event, but they do not have to be that elaborate or expensive. The targeted audience was us grunt developers and Independant consultants. They stated that they considered this level of conferencing to produce the most results.