I think you are right on the money here, Markus. A quick comparison of the session schedule and total costs for eFox and DevCon says it all. I was also very surprised to find out how much better a hotel in KC was as a conference venue than a resort in Palm Springs.

A couple people also made the observation that there is no track that really works for more beginning level people - some of the topics are a bit esoteric if you are still trying to figure out how to write basic applications - and I still think conferences overall would draw bigger if there were a "training" track where you learned something besides how much the speaker knows on a particular topic < s >

It sometimes seems sessions are selected presupposing everyone attending has attended (and mastered) all the sessions given at conferences since 1995.


>
>The problem with the VFP DevCon is a different one though. Every year the keynote comes around, the speaker asks how many new people are there (first time DevCon attendees). And then about 1/2 to 2/3 raise their hand, which is celebrated as a great result since we manage to draw in new people...
>
>BUT THIS IS BOLONEY!
>
>My question is: How come only 100 people came to the show that were there last year? If they manage to draw in 200 new people each year (or more), than why the hell is the show not growing?
>
>That's where the problem is. People are not coming back. I guess that's because they feel they do not get good value (some have indicated this in this thread).
>
>Markus