Tirades from a tradeshow organizer

Tim Bourquin, my favorite tradeshow startup blogger, has been busy lately with some great posts. Like this one on why you should be very, very careful with sponsored sessions. And this great rant about the cost of high-speed Internet at hotels and convention centers:

I’ve continually complained about the cost of high-speed Internet at convention centers and hotels since the first day I saw the convention center order form back in 1998. The trouble is, back then I could somewhat see the justification because centers and hotels were spending a lot of money to build the infrastructure. It was expensive to offer so it was expensive to buy.





But the convention centers and hotels are still charging for the service like it was 1998. $1,200 for two or three days is absurd - beyond a rip-off - and it was costing us booth sales. How is it that I can get more reliable and faster upload/download speeds at home for about $40 a month and yet for two days it costs $1,200?

Excellent question. I believe the answer is that they do it because they can. Same rationale as for the exhorbitant phone rates in rooms. Now if someone can just come up with a solution for the connectivity that would parallel how cellphones have made the hotel phone rates irrelevant...