In the meetings industry, there is considerable—and justifiable—concern that skyrocketing fuel prices may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. That people will say “enough” and refuse to pay higher and higher airfares, and that many will stop going to conferences and meetings altogether.

For most meetings, it’s already a struggle to break even. Many don’t make it. But I don’t want to talk about those meetings. I want to talk about the last two conferences I attended, not because they illustrate this trend, but because they buck it.

In June, the San Diego-based strategic meetings firm Concepts Worldwide invited The Conference Publishers to join its team at the 44^th Drug Information Association conference and trade show, in Boston. It was a great honour, and great fun, to work beside our friends from Concepts. We expect our participation to generate measurable medium- and long-term benefits for our firm.

Turnout for the 44^th DIA conference and trade show was up about 1,000 from the 43^rd.

I write this from a hotel room in Las Vegas where I’m attending Meeting Professionals International’s World Education Congress. This is, by a healthy margin, the largest gathering MPI has ever assembled. While Las Vegas is widely seen as an appealing destination, I’m convinced there’s more at play.

It may be dangerous to try to identify just one or two factors behind either of these successes, but I will anyway.

The DIA conference and trade show offers manufacturers, regulators, and other pharmaceutical stakeholders two very important things:

• A unique opportunity for frank exchanges among groups with conflicting interests and agendas
• A marketplace for a structurally complex and highly segmented industry

If the secret to DIA’s success is delivery of a consistent event that respects stakeholders’ comfort zones, MPI has taken a completely contrary approach. MPI has begun to treat its conferences as “learning labs.” MPI takes risks in modeling innovative meeting techniques and technologies for its members. And the risk-taking seems to be paying off.

On Sunday morning, keynote speaker Patrick Dixon reminded more than 4,000 MPI members that “life’s too short to waste time on things that don’t matter.”

That is the test that every meeting, every conference, must pass. If you make it worth your members’ time—if you make it matter to them—they will come.

Do you know what matters to your members?