The Business of Conferences

["George F. Hayhoe" <george -at- ghayhoe -dot- com>]

There's been a lot of discussion in the past couple of days about
people's expectations that speakers at conferences should not be
expected to pay conference fees and perhaps should also have their
expenses covered by the sponsoring organization.

Let's think a little bit about the business of conferences.

To defray or completely cover speakers' expenses, a conference must
generate enough income in fees and attendance that it can afford to
absorb those expenses.

Take the typical STC annual conference, for example. That conference's
250 technical sessions feature about 500 speakers. To absorb the
average cost of $1650 per speaker (4 hotel nights at $200/night and
$500 for airfare, plus the loss of $350 in conference fee income per
speaker), the conference would have to generate an additional $825K in
income from the 2000 nonspeaker attendees. That would require adding
$412 to the attendance fee, essentially doubling it. Raising the fee
so significantly would also risk the loss of attendance, resulting in
even higher fees.

Some conferences do absorb speakers' expenses. In our field, they are
almost always commercially operated; some professional organizations
in other fields run conferences that can afford to subsidize speakers'
expenses because of vendor sponsorships or vast attendance. In my
experience, most of these offer proportionately fewer choices per
timeslot than STC.

STC has traditionally operated on the volunteer model of conferences
rather than the invited speaker model. Peers help peers pro bono.
Recently, conference speakers have received a modest discount on
registration fees and no other perqs except for a cash bar reception,
a special registration line, and a token gift. Many of these speakers
get their expenses paid by their companies because they are speaking,
though the consultants and contractors in our ranks don't receive that
benefit.

This may or may not be the optimal model for conferences in our field.
The STC conference advisory committee and board of directors have
debated the issue for at least the past 10 years. Each side of the
debate has strong arguments.

I've attended an average of five conferences a year for the past ten
years and have spoken at all but one of them. These conferences were
sponsored by STC (annual, regional, and chapter conferences), IEEE
PCS, INTECOM, WinWriters, and other organizations. I've had all
expenses paid for only two of those conferences, at which I was the
keynote speaker; I've had partial expenses paid for three more. I've
had conference fees waived for five; I've received a speaker's
registration discount for most of the rest but not all.

I've learned more at some of these conferences than at others, but
I've learned enough at all of them to justify my time and other costs.
Also, there hasn't been a strong correlation in my experience between
program quality and either the sponsoring organization or the fact
that speakers had volunteered or been invited.

--George Hayhoe (george -at- ghayhoe -dot- com)

George Hayhoe Associates
Voice: +1 (803) 642-2156
Fax: +1 (803) 642-9325
http://www.ghayhoe.com

Winner of Three APEX 2000
Awards for Publication Excellence



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