wait, you mean like an industry-specific conference, or the conference industry in general?
regarding industry-specific, this fly fishing guide conference was awesome and had a ton of merit as a networking event.
regarding my company, I still can't believe they did it for me. While they treat me as a cost to keep low about damn near everything else, they just dropped several grand on me and Elaine to go, uh, network.
(and by network, I mean drink craft beer at an open bar, not that I think that takes anything away from anything...if anything, it helped to foster the networking)
regarding the industry in general, as a whole it strikes me more so as such an indulgence that you'd think would be the first to be cut from any business actually paying attention to cash flows. (ETA, and apparently the conference industry as a whole is booming...)
We host hundreds of these sorts of things at our ranch every year, and it's incredible how businesses will just throw money indiscriminately at their employees/clients/guests.
If it's a legit conference, at which legit networking and contacts and leads can be fostered, and legit substantive meetings and breakout sessions and such go down, that's one thing. But perhaps the more common event is not the conference, but the "retreat," which is basically a bunch of coworkers who already know each other collectively getting spoiled.
"ohh it's hundreds of dollars for a fishing trip, and I'll be charged if I no-show? well sign me up in case I feel like doing it, even though I'll probably end up just spending the afternoon at the bar. Who cares about the cancellation fee, it's going on the company card either way."
then there's the inherent ironies of the conferences - in one breakout session about environmental impact, the attendees who collectively were expected to travel tens of thousands of miles and burned how many gallons of fossil fuels all get lectured about how we all need to reduce our carbon footprint.
shrug.
not that I'm not grateful to have done it!
