Originally Posted by GFFMegan

I'm not sure if there is a way to do this with internet side, but i saw it work VERY well on DVD side.

Chris you are probably aware of Expomark. But for those who aren?t ...

It is a DVD show that only the studios pay to go. Then all the buyers are brought in for free. It is 3 days and you have meetings ever 30 min. A pager notifies you of the end of the meeting, 5 min to travel to the next meeting. No matter how big or small everyone is forced to meet with everyone. Even if you don't like each other (in that case you pretty much sit there in silence or just do the "hey i showed up ... we have nothing to talk about .. see ya!" or in a few rare instances work out your differences)

Being forced to see if there is a way 2 entities can do business is a great idea. I dreaded the idea at first, but quickly loved it. Expomark was responsible for getting the best of the best buyers there, with suggestions from the studios as well. The show attendees were offered breakfast and lunch together. The meetings ran from 9:30 to 5:30 (with a few breaks and lunch thrown in there). Then from that point on some had special dinners, some have special events, some just hung at the hotel bar together. This allowed for the ?fun time? to get to know people as well. We were given a questionnaire filled out by every buyer a week before the show. It let you know all their contact info, what products they were most interested in, etc. I was able to create a meeting agenda for each person caters to their needs.

Granted the attendance is MUCH smaller than Internext, but I think a modified version of this COULD work. It would allow every program face time with every webmaster/traffic source. Sometimes 15 min of face time so you can follow up later is all you need. That may never happen if people don?t happen to randomly meet and are unaware of each other. Hypothetically you could do this from Noon to 5 each day out by the pool. Make the meetings 25 min, 5 min ?travel time?. Make people sign up to do it. And MAKE SURE IT?S A RESTRICTED area since people don?t always abide by the ?Don?t bother people while they appear to be in a meeting just to say hi!! rule?

Few other random points:

-I also suggest doing away with SO many seminars ? there really are very few needed.

-I also think WAY to many shows are around!! I think 3-4 is more than enough! Just make sure the 3-4 are killer shows, work within peoples budgets and that there is CLEVER marketing options for sponsors.

-CAN ANYONE HERE TELL ME WHO SPONSORED THE BAR AT INTERNEXT LAST YEAR (doesn?t count if you?re the sponsor)? CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT 5 COMPANIES SPONSORED SOME PARTY AT PHOENIX FORUM? You get my point ? The sponsorship opportunities need to have a major overhaul ? and that is NOT Internext specific.