PubCon Countdown...

I'm off to Vegas tomorrow night for my very first Publisher Conference (Pubcon.com). In years past I had tried to go, but my "day job" always seemed to get in the way. Not this year. Business is going well and I have the extra time.

As I mentioned before, I will be doing a post-PubCon series outlining what I have learned. I'm guessing it will be a lot like testing out affiliate programs. Lots of crap and stuff I alread know... which a few gems of information hidden in each day or conversation.

I have also been considering Shoemoney's "EliteRetreat" (eliteretreat.info) next month in beautiful San Antonio. My only hesitation is the timing of the event. It is pretty close to the holidays and I'll most likely be out of town already. Well that and I have not yet decided how I feel about sharing so much about my business with a group that has the money and resources to compete with me if they chose. Not that I think that is their goal, but I have to guess if they stumble across some sites they find interesting with potential, the wheels will start churning in their heads as well.

The cost of the EliteRetreat is also a negative. I believe they are charging around $4800/person for the event and that does not include travel/hotel expenses. They are limiting seating to 35 lucky contestants. With my bad math, that equates to $168,000 for 2 days work. Subtract out lunch and conference room fees for 2 days ($10,000?) and divide it by 5 (number of panelists) equates to about $15k/day for each panelist. That's about $30,000 each panelist will walk away with. Seems a bit steep in price markup to me.

Of course they (the panelists) will all be putting a lot of prep time into it which gets factored into the cost, as well as their travel expenses, etc. But I think they could have got aways with charging half that price and still made a decent profit. Just my 2 cents.