Originally Posted by sbm12

I have no inside knowledge of the numbers, but I have been to several of the FTU (all of them, I think) and I can make some reasonably educated guesses from this most recent event.

1) I think somewhere around 300.
2) 60-75%
3) Same
4) 100%
5) Quite the leading question and probably a bit of a red herring. Yes, there is overlap and similarities in the sessions but there are people I know who said they wanted to attend multiple concurrent sessions so those might attend again to do different topics. Also, the sessions do change each time. Maybe not a ton, but I know all three of my presentations were different this time than in DC. So were several others. And the ones which were the same were still new to the majority of the attendees who were first-time visitors.

I think that there is a core group of "regulars" who show up for the socializing and drinking. There was a group of 10 who were all paid attendees and who all spent Saturday on a boat rather than at the hotel. Most of them attended only one or two sessions at most. Then there were the couple hundred newbies who were somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that there are so many others who are similarly crazy and who were soaking it all up. I don't think that everyone will suddenly want to go to every event but I think there will be some repeat visitors from that group to future events.

One of the things I like about FTU is that it moves around, making it easier for locals to show up in different parts of the country. That is a significant portion of the attendee pool (plenty of people drove to the TPA event rather than flying) and making this information easily accessible to different people is a good thing IMO.

There seems to be some sort of strange obsession with the idea that no one should ever pay for anything or do anything other than read forums to gain knowledge. There are so many reasons this is a bad approach it isn't even funny. People learn differently. Being able to help others learn about these programs and how to better leverage their activities is what it is all about. If there are people who are more comfortable learning in a seminar format or conversations pool-side or over lunch at the event then let them learn that way. Help them learn more. I had several people express at various points that they had been reading the forums but that hearing it in a discussion finally helped it all "click" in their brain. That's a tremendous endorsement for these types of events.

And if they don't work for you (or if you think they don't) then don't go. Don't pay the trivial fee and don't have the experience. But don't get down on those who are running them, presenting at them or attending them. That's just plain silly.