Why it is a Difficult Decision for me to Attend a Business Conference?

While its true that I normally look for free events, but I don’t mind paying for events that have potential to offer benefits to me.

Now the problem is — how do I evaluate the potential benefits of a future event.

I have been facing this problem for over 3 years now — since the time I started attending business events. And, every time, I have asked myself:

• Will this event be worth attending at the cost of event fee and time spent?
• What are my networking prospects? Will this event attract the kind of attendees whom I can network/engage with?

‘Friends’ and ‘online discussions’ are the sources of information for me when it comes to making decisions about any event. Discussion forums often offer generic pointers, don’t help me much because my interests normally are unique.

I have been attending events to primarily a) network with other attendees, and b) learn new things about the industry. So i try to find out who else is attending events and what kind of speakers are joining for what sessions. I try to find out the profile of people that are attending.

So, first, I don’t get to see all attendees’ profiles. Even if I see the profiles, I don’t get to interact with them, so that i can schedule meeting with them for the event day. As a result, the event day turns out to me a blind date rush through the crowd — highly inefficient from the networking perspective.

Secondly, I can’t be sure if a speaker will do justice to the planned session. I have been continuously disappointed by speakers at many events. Well, it might also be a function of what organizers convey to speakers about the session theme and possible depth in the content.

Many a time, I’ve got negligible ROIs from many events, and I would not have invested time & money in attending such events. Most importantly, my time has an opportunity cost for me.

So, at EventzIO, we thought of solving this problem for ourselves and for everyone. In the next article, I will talk about what we are doing to help people decide which events to attend.