Indications the events business is picking up

One of the bits of data that came out of Blackfriars marketing research in the first quarter is that events are making a comback. For the first time in several quarters, events spending is the third largest category in business marketing budgets for 2005. Well, today's New York Times had an interesting supporting article to that trend today. It notes that Esther Dyson is organizing a commercial space flight conference to run in parallel with her PC forum conference in Scottsdale, AZ. Her best quote:

Nobody's holding a space conference, so I decided to do one," she said in an interview. "It's not that there aren't space conferences, but nothing as tacky and commercial as we want to be."

The fact that a conference impresario is starting a new category of conference is notable in itself. But the fact that Ms. Dyson plans to use the conference to influence business investment just shows the power of face-to-face communication, especially in this era of the tyranny of too much. Scottsdale in March certainly sounds like a pleasant way to spur some creative thinking, especially for those of us looking at another winter storm bearing down on us tonight.