Conference company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conference companies devise, research, market and stage events for a profit.

Revenue is earned by charging delegates registration fees (USD$1,000 to $2,000) for admission to each programme and through sponsorship. Typical costs include marketing, hotel, speaker fees, documentation and salaries for conference producers who develop the programmes.

For a profit to be earned, conference topics are usually business related covering topics of interest to the following sectors:

Technology, Transport, Defence, Finance, Marketing, Accounting, Telecommunications, Investment, Pharmaceuticals, Law, Technology, Human Resources, Mining, Construction, Energy, Tax, Infrastructure, Strategy, Medicine, Logistics, Government, Media and others.

The first global conference company was the Institute for International Research which began in the early 1970s. From the early 1990s, conferences as a product began to commoditise as other companies replicated IIR's success. The formula has now been largely improved and new companies such as T&F Informa, International Quality and Productivity Center, Marcus Evans, Tonkin Corporation, LexisNexis, Strategic Research Institute and World Research Group have risen to be equally competitive.

Conferences are information products and fall into the same industry classification as trade magazines, business newsletters, internet publishing, exhibitions, training and business consulting.

Like these related businesses, conference companies research and determine content offerings. Conference companies, and the conference producers who drive their activities, should not be confused with professional conference organisers (PCOs) and meeting planners. Such activity is generically categorised as event management, and relates to logistics work which creates the platform for the content to be delivered. Tasks such as booking hotels and staffing registration desks are part of event management.