Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Should You Attend The FT Alphaville Conference at £199 per cap or the Vanity Fair Conference for $5,000?

On the one hand VF is featuring the nasal intonations of Michael Bloomberg.
On the other, if I'm reading this correctly, FTAv is discounting even that reasonable £199, at least for much of the hedge fund world:
- 50% off for full-time students and representatives of non-profit organisations
But back to Vanity Fair via the NYT's Media Decoder column:

Vanity Fair’s Fall Conference Taps Power of the Rolodex
Vanity Fair magazine will host a conference in San Francisco this fall, becoming the latest publication to enter the potentially lucrative — and increasingly crowded — field of live events.

For the conference, which will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the magazine’s annual “New Establishment” list of influential people in early October, 350 people will be charged $5,000 each to attend. Speakers include Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief; Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York; and Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the former director of the National Security Agency.

Vanity Fair joins numerous other publications, including The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, in using live events to leverage their brands and contacts. The events have joined other established conferences — like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo.; and TED — that fill the calendars of business executives, or at least those with robust expense accounts....MORE
Then again, General Alexander was so smooth when he was lying to Congress last year that there will surely be some marketing tips to be gleaned.
How could Camp Alphaville with its 50 speakers compete?

The Camp AV caption competition
"Excuse me is this the Big Top?"
"Nah mate, this rally has probably got a couple years left in it."
"Thanks, and where can I get a drink?"
"In the beer tent but you'd better hurry because Andy Haldane is in there and I can hear a great sucking sound."...MORE