Never let the truth spoil a good story…
As a journalist and member of the meetings industry, it annoys me to see myopic and negative media reports about “frivolous” or “excessive” meetings (conferences, congress etc). These stories suggest that conferences represent wasteful or unnecessary expenditure. The reality is that they are irrefutably the most cost-effective educational, networking and communication tool available to any association or corporation.
Public servants, politicians, doctors, dentists, academics, scientists, lawyers, judges and corporate executives (to name a few) are criticised for wanting to expand their knowledge, meet with colleagues, discuss the vocation, gain a world view and solve problems. The media inference is that conferences are fun and games. The reality is that the majority are hard work for the delegate in travelling, attending sessions and networking, albeit the latter sometimes happens over a beer or two after a long day in sessions. In fact tax deductibility of any conference relies on entertainment being incidental to the dominant purpose – education.
The media bias worsens when referring to the excesses of attending overseas conferences. The reality is that flying around the world is not fun. More often than not the conference delegate, not by choice, spends more time in airports and in-flight than they do at the meeting. Whether they stay at a three, four or five star hotel, take their life partners or fly economy, business or first class is more about their status, entitlements and work/life balance than about excess.
Some parochial media coverage suggests that Australians should only attend Australian conferences. The reality is that this flies in the face of the principles of free trade, ignoring the fact that we live in a global society and need to be familiar with and learn from other nations. Australia cannot afford to adopt an insular view on this – international delegates coming to our shores are a major export earner. Free trade is good trade.
Finally there is the old chestnut about the ill-use of taxpayers’ money when the payment is made from the public purse. Wouldn’t you rather have educated public servants and politicians who understand their jobs better and can converse with private enterprise counterparts as equals?
So why do people attend conferences? Event Planners Australia regularly polls delegates to find their motivations. When asked what their primary and secondary motivations are for attending, the responses broadly fall into the following categories (percentages are not intended to add up to 100%).
- 80% primarily attend for the program – to take new skills back to their workplace
- 50% attend for networking – to meet contemporaries and discuss common issues
- 25% attend as speakers – to present new research or an aspect of their work
- 5% attend as a sponsor or exhibitor to win new business or establish relationships with buyers
There are of course other reasons and these represent the difference between an adequately attended conference and one that is hugely popular. Some of these include:
- the location – attendees are not generally there for a holiday but become an “accidental tourist” who may have a few spare hours to see the sights. If they do stay on as a tourist they generally do so at their own cost.
- as a reward from their employer for a job well done
- to understand the bigger industry picture or map out their career
- to network, find a new job or add to their CV
- to gain continuing education points necessary to continue to practice in their vocation
- habit - some attend “because they always do” out of support for their Association or vocation or because they are board or committee members
Partying, going on a holiday or wasting time are conspicuously absent from the list of primary, secondary or even tertiary reasons for attendance. Admittedly, a small minority of attendees may have such motivations; however in these days of accountability the odds are their employer would soon put a stop to such frivolous uses of an organisation’s time and money.
What we do see is that a conference motivates and energises and in a very short period provides massive amounts of education that could not be easily gained elsewhere.
Now to the econometrics of a typical conference. On average, delegates pay a registration fee of around $1,000 for typical 3-5 day conference. Sponsorship and exhibition income usually accounts for about $100-500 per person on top of that.
These funds are typically spent on inviting valuable local and international speakers, subsidising attendance costs for students (our future) or bringing delegates from developing countries (our corporate social responsibility), staging the conference (printing, marketing, audiovisual, venue hire, organisers fees and so on) and to provide basic sustenance to delegates. These funds directly contribute to the economic multiplier effect – they keep our economy spinning and isn’t that what most governments around the globe have been encouraging in the face of one of the worst economic meltdowns in history?
As important is the socioeconomic impact of bringing together the keenest minds in a particular industry or vocation. It is difficult to assign a monetary value to intellectual “earnings”. Who has not witnessed first hand the great scientific and social breakthroughs that have occurred either during or after the meeting of such minds? A conference, through broad vocational cooperation, quickly creates enormous value, outweighing any funding costs and far in excess of any commercial educational alternative.
Conferences enjoy incredible economies of scale, efficiently reaching much wider audiences and with greater effect than convening any number of individual meetings, focus groups, or other modes of interaction. When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wanted the opinions of 1,000 leading Australians, he chose the most economic way possible and the Australia 2020 Summit was convened (as part of the management team we know just how economical it was).
Turning to the “fun” part, we have found that an average of 10-20% of the budget is spent on a welcome reception or dinner (which often serves as the vocational awards program as well). Of that, around 80% of the cost is for sustenance i.e. food and beverages – that leaves only 20% for “frivolities” such as entertainment, audiovisual and decoration. Most conference dinners are pretty austere these days as they want to keep the price down.
The economic multiplier of conferences is one of the highest known. It also fulfils most of the corporate social responsibility criteria by: encouraging technology transfer; building business/vocational linkages; disseminating business/vocational standards; investing in human capital (training); creating jobs; generating investment, and more.
In summary, a conference is much greater than the sum of its parts. No other educational or marketing tool can equal its value-for-money and its timely impact.
So instead of scorning conferences we should be supporting them by recognising just how valuable they really are. If you see a negative media report take the time to compose a letter to the editor (or send this article) and help protect our already economically ravaged industry.
If you want to significantly improve and grow your meeting or event contact me – you won’t be disappointed. rays@eventplanners.com.au.
