An advertiser's-eye view of Schwab IMPACT and the mini-city of marketing it created
Three days of conversations, recycled swag and ancillary events

Elmer Rich III
We and our clients have stopped attending most conferences for the reasons pointed out in this article — they have become mainly selling events. With most speakers paying to speak and most speeches being sales pitches and not real sharing or problem solving — our clients can stay home and get all the sales pitches they want.
We appreciate that conferences are a huge money makers for the organizers. So the conference sponsors make money, presumably the paying sponsors do, media too — but what about the attendees? What tangible business benefits, ROI, do the attendees get? Everyone else involved is making money.
Less and less this seems even a concern of the organizers and sponsors. We have often wondered how successful conferences would be if they were not in vacation locations. chuckle
As Brooke said: “there’s just something special about San Francisco” Sure, Tony Bennet left his heart there.
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