Bubble Watch: Expensive Conferences
Another thought about the growing fascination about whether there’s a dot-com bubble happening: conferences have become big business, especially in Silicon Valley.
Facts to consider: About 1,000 people are attending the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week. At $3,595 a ticket, that’s gross revenue of $3.6-million, not including money from sponsors such as Nokia, AOL, eBay and Microsoft.
This sold-out event comes on the heels of TechCrunch40 that saw 800 people cough up $2,500 a ticket, which is gross revenue of $2-million. (Cynthia Brumfield suggests this meant a cool profit of $2.1 million for the organizers, Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington, after taking into account sponsorship.)
You can find my chicken list post about the bubble worries from earlier today here.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I don’t have first-hand knowledge of either conference, but I do know that most attendees at a conference are there for free or for a reduced price. I’d be surprised if either conference grossed more than $1M in registration. Also, running conferences isn’t cheap. I’m sure both of these events turned a profit, but I’m also sure it wasn’t the outrageous profit you suggest.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
You’re right, conferences aren’t inexpensive to arrange - something I have learned first-hand from helping organize the mesh conference in Toronto. That said, our prices are significantly less than the TechCrunch40 of the Web Summit.