Market your conference correctly!

Here's a rant about how most conferences are marketed. I am by no means an expert in regards to event management. The last major event I organized was a "kegger" and those of you who don't know what I'm talkig about....don't ask! Anyway, as a VC you tend to initially go to lots of conferences. After some time, you start to realize that at the majority of the conferences you attend, you're seeing the same people over and over again. This is the nature of the industry....it's still pretty small and it's easy enough to get to know the key players if you're around long enough. At the same time, new conferences show up on the radar screen. At times, you even tend to go out of the industry to try and find new things, i.e. say a conference on a specific technology, or a developers event, or whatever. The goal is to always be finding new things and getting new perspectives. At the same time, when you look at most conference marketing, you get a lot of blah, blah about the speakers and topics to be discussed. But if you're lucky, you get a list at most of what type of people the conference is aimed at. Well conference organizers, the main reason I usually go

to conferences is to meet people. We all know that every now and then you hear something new in regards to panels, or workshops, etc. but it's usually fairly high-level and if you're an expert in your industry, you probably already know it. So, what's the first thing I want to know about a conference? WHO am I going to specifically meet there and what value will this have for me. What DON'T I usually find on any marketing material for conferences? WHO is going to attend or who has attended in the past (OK, I realize this is a tough one for a first time event....but hey, I'm not the event guy, so figure something out!) Remember, it always has been and always will be about the people! It's a conference which in and of itself implies PEOPLE!