change the venue up completely .. maybe take it up to Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods up in New England, or Atlantic City, something with convention center or big meeting rooms, casino, and not Vegas.
let the night life draw be something in NYC or Boston based on location. cut down on the sponsored suites, the row of parties always seemed like a distraction from what used to be something bigger and more organized.
one central party / event per night and then nothing but Biz / Seminar / Networking during the day. NY area has plenty of places to golf, get out and do whatever, including some of the best restaurants in the US.
also there needs to be some sort of identity for the show.
if it's going to be heavy on B2B, then it should be marketted as such and geared to that. It has to be more then a gathering, so perhaps service providers should be given Free entry in return to give 10-15% discounts or waived fees to any attendee.
if it's going to be B2C ( programs -> affiliates ), then things need to change up. perhaps for sponsor programs to go, they need to commit to buying out 5 passes for every one employee sent. encourage sponsors to get affiliates there. On top of that, if you're going to market it like this, perhaps you need to structure events geared to affiliates and then solicit sponsorship from the programs as opposed to letting them decide how your show shapes up.
end of the day, some people love alot of shows, however it seems like attendance dictates something very different.
1 AVN show for Biz ( Do the Consumer thing whenever ) - 1 CCBill Show ( Move it to the Phoenician
) - 1 WebmasterAccess in AMS ( Or Ibiza ) , close to 4 months in between each for cool down.