Why Do People Have Conferences in London?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Anyway, to answer the OP question, I'm assuming you're talking referring to Spiceworks? I assume their conferences are one of their major revenue streams so I'm sure they've thought things through.
I don't know how popular the Spiceworks software is in mainland Europe, but the majority of European posters on the forums appear to be British and London is always going to be the best location for any conference that is dominated by Brits for two basic reasons:
- Transport links. All roads lead to London, as they say... You can get to London and back in a few hours from most of England. Getting to other cities can be a ball-ache. Birmingham is also good, and that's why so many conferences at the NEC there. But there's a bigger choice of venues in London.
- The majority of British IT is based in London and the South East, so it's local.
Odd that they take the opposite tack as in the US. In the US they chose a low cost, non-IT, small, easy logistics city to make the conference cheap, easy and low stress. In the UK they do the opposite. In the US they make "everyone" travel to the place, in the UK half the people are local, I assume. Completely different approaches. I wonder why, when the one formula was so successful, they immediately abandoned it.
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Surely let's ask the Spiceworks guys why?
But more to the point, would an organisation like NTG not come because it's in London? What made you come in previous years, why are you still coming now.
If tickets keep getting sold and if the people still come, then for the texas office, there is no "reason" to change the model Perhaps they need a few reasons?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Completely different approaches. I wonder why, when the one formula was so successful, they immediately abandoned it.
I'm not sure what you mean, there? I suppose there's bound to be different approaches because the US is such a large country. I expect Americans are more comfortable travelling between states than Europeans are travelling between countries.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Odd that they take the opposite tack as in the US. In the US they chose a low cost, non-IT, small, easy logistics city to make the conference cheap, easy and low stress.
What do you call small? The Spiceworks conference is in Austin, isn't it? According to wikipedia that's the 11th largest city in the US. It's hardly small!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Odd that they take the opposite tack as in the US. In the US they chose a low cost, non-IT, small, easy logistics city to make the conference cheap, easy and low stress.
What do you call small? The Spiceworks conference is in Austin, isn't it? According to wikipedia that's the 11th largest city in the US. It's hardly small!
800K. It's the fourth largest just in Texas. It's definitely a smallish city. It's only about 20% the size of the next largest city in Texas. And that one is much smaller than the two big ones. It's not "small" but it is extremely small for a conference city. It is so small that you can't get direct flights to it. It has one tiny airport and you have to hop through "real" cities to get there. It's a great town with a nice downtown, it's my favourite US city, in fact, but large it is not.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Completely different approaches. I wonder why, when the one formula was so successful, they immediately abandoned it.
I'm not sure what you mean, there? I suppose there's bound to be different approaches because the US is such a large country. I expect Americans are more comfortable travelling between states than Europeans are travelling between countries.
Not sure that that is true. I rarely meet Europeans that have never left their country (except a little with the UK since you are surrounded by water and leaving is a bit of a pain) but meeting Americans, even affluent ones near a border, that have never come near another state is really common.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Surely let's ask the Spiceworks guys why?
It's a general question. They easily have their own specific reasons that don't apply generally (specific user base, local office, they just like the city, etc.) But conferences are often in London, I feel, but it seems like one of the worst possible locations unless you are just looking for the locals.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
But more to the point, would an organisation like NTG not come because it's in London? What made you come in previous years, why are you still coming now.
NTG only goes to London when it is free. We'd likely be willing to pay for a lot of other locations. Same for a lot of individuals. When people are paying their own way, London makes a conference extremely expensive. It might be great if you cater to those from large companies that pay for conference travel, but in the SMB market that is fairly rare. I'll take a look, but I feel that the US conference feeling of tons of people paying their own way won't exist in London. It makes for a different audience.
I've not gone to SW London with NTG, even when I was in the UK at the time, because of the London costs. I'm only going now because I am both speaking and paid for. I was offered a speaking slow while in the UK last time but the cost to attend to prohibitive and we decided that it was not worth it.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
If tickets keep getting sold and if the people still come, then for the texas office, there is no "reason" to change the model Perhaps they need a few reasons?
There might be great reasons for London that I don't know about. But just saying that there is no reason if tickets keeping getting sold isn't true. The reason is the cost of lost opportunity. What if twice or thrice as many tickets would be sold if it was not in London? London might be costing them (or anyone doing it there) a fortune.
In the Austin model, they get people from all over the world. It is a "destination" event. Lots of people come from the UK and Europe to attend the US event. In fact, I think that it is cheaper for Europe to go to Austin than to go to London, or about equal. But the Austin event is longer, larger and better for networking.
That's why I'm surprised. Why make the UK event focused on the locals only and prohibitive to everyone else? Why not make the UK / EU event a "destination" that people from all over want to attend? If it wasn't so expensive, NTG would send tons of people to two events a year, for example. Lots of vendors attend Austin but not London or send a fraction of the representation. @nic isn't getting to go to London, but goes to Austin, for example.
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One place you see a difference (for us at least) is the spouse and support staff thing. My wife attends SW Austin even when we have to come in from another country (like this year, we are flying in from Panama.) But she isn't attending London even though she is in Europe during it. Same with @Minion-Queen's husband.
The feeling of how people attend London feels completely different.
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Going back to lost opportunity, do they want to attract cash-rich companies who will float the bill of travel, expenses, conference & still buy items? Whilst deterring others.
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Don't get me wrong, London is a fun town. I've worked there. I had an office on Canary Wharf. I wouldn't want conferences in NYC, Washington, LA or San Fran either. The US has plenty of very "bad" places for conferences but lots of good ones. Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando, Atlanta, Seattle, etc.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Going back to lost opportunity, do they want to attract cash-rich companies who will float the bill of travel, expenses, conference & still buy items? Whilst deterring others.
I suppose but that seems like an odd target given how big the "others" are in Austin. And won't the big rich companies float the bill even when the cost of travel and lodging is low, not only when it is high? Maybe I am missing something, but London seems like a "filter" city - filtering how those without the heaving financial wherewithall to attend there. Since the conference profit is lower in London than other places, and since money is primarily earned by having more attendees, it seems odd to want to both filter out a significant part of your traditional audience while simultaneously lowering the margin on each attendee.
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If the same model was used in Austin, I would be less surprised. But the Austin conference is very inclusive rather than exclusive.
But again, this thread is not about Spiceworld, it's about why London would be a chosen destination for conferences in general. I'm genuinely interested. Is the local transport and UK / London attendee focus so strong that it is worth holding a conference that is effectively just for the locals as opposed to having one for the region?
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@scottalanmiller said:
800K. It's the fourth largest just in Texas. It's definitely a smallish city.
It's big by European standards. Only Birmingham and London are bigger in the UK. Are a disproportionate number of conferences held in London? I wouldn't know as I hate conferences and try and avoid them as much as possible. But a quick Google comes up with conferences all over Europe - I'm not seeing a massive focus on London.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@Minion-Queen said:
Ok figuring out my costs and it really is crazy expensive just to get from the airport to my hotel alone is going to cost almost $100!!
Where are you flying into? The airport express train to Gatwick and Heathrow is about $30 one-way or $50 return, I think.
I usually just take a cab when I lad somewhere to get to my hotel (except in NYC as it is actually easier to take the train). So that is the route I started looking at. That is crazy expensive. But luckily someone else will be waiting at the airport and help me navigate the tube there. I have no sense of direction at all so don't want to deal with it myself.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
Prestige
What's prestigious about bad planning?
People think it's a fancy city/good tourism place whether it actually is or not.
Maybe it's because I worked in banking, but I was completely unaware that London had a fancy city vibe. It's so often famous for having to "overcome" the bad feelings about it and actually surprises people by being a little fancy.
London is very much looked at in the same way as NYC is. People travel from all over the world to see it. We grew up in NY and know NYC isn't that great. However, to the rest of the world, they can't wait to go there. Same principle with London, except you throw on top the English accents, and yeah....there ya go.
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My Parents got to go to New York once... They both said it was great, but that they were glad to be back home, lol.
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I enjoy going into NYC for a day or 2 but not much more than that. I am a country girl I love my space. Though there is something to be said for it taking less than 15 minutes to get to a store or 45 to find a good place to eat.
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People Go to NYC for a vacation? No thanks.
I consider Austin to be a big city.The town beside my village (yes I live in a village). is a conference location. They have a population of approx 20,000 people. And they have several hotels with conference centers. One of which is a govt owned hotel (never heard of that before). They also have a Civic center with an arena that can seat 22,000. and a Preforming arts theater (both of which are also owned by the government). The city beside it has a city owned 10,000 seat civic center.
