This ones for you! :)
http://360conferences.com/blog/2008/10/why-are-you-picking-on-cfunited-answer.html

Actually Liz came back and asked if we’d like more “correct” facts. We said yes, and received no reply. To me that’s a conversation.

I’ve heard there’s something like 2400 conferences a year. We only know about the ones in our sphere of influence. In that sphere. it’s CFU, CF.O, FOTB, FITC, FF, a few others, Flash belt.

CFU wasn’t being singled out so much as being made an example of. CF.O was included in the post, as it’s also a low cost, high value conference. We also singled CFU out, because I’ve attended it before. I know what I felt when I left. Every event in the price range of CFU, is, IMO suspect.

I believe that all events that charge anywhere near what CFU, does, are charging too much. That includes MAX.

MAX however isn’t a community event. MAX is Adobe marketing. MAX also covers a much deeper and broader spectrum of products. CFU, is well… CF. and some Flex, to have an RIA presence. SO not really an even comparison.

If you’d like to sit down and have a call with Tom and or I, we’d love to talk more about the topic. We’re pretty open and honest about the whole thing.

And yeah we don’t know CFU’s exact numbers. However we do know what stuff costs, it’s not hard to make pretty educated guesses. We’re not exactly not familiar with events.

John, you didn’t ask a question, you made a bold sweeping statement, then went on to clarify in the comments that you actually have no accurate figures to base it on.

I’ll ask a question, why is this post specific to CFUnited when there are so many other conferences that charge the same, if not more (i.e. Max)?

We don’t have any accurate figures, because they choose not to share. You’re right, they don’t have to be transparent, that’s their right. That doesn’t mean we can’ call them out. We do know what they charge, and can make fairly accurate guesses based on our own experiences.

As for MAX… I don’t want to imagine how many 360|Flexs MAX could pay for, I don’t deal in numbers that large. We’ve been and are critical of MAX, but it’s not a community event. It’s Adobe’s Marketing event.

It’s fairly simple. CFUnited, could easily engage in this conversation and explain why their event costs what it does. They choose not to, we choose to ask the qeuestion.

Interestingly enough it seems your supporters of Max (no bad thing), but what about the costs for Max? How many 360′s would one Max pay for?

Its cool 360Flex is transparent, but it doesn’t mean anyone else should be.

We’re major proponents of transparency, so let’s share

I had always assumed that CFUNITED made >$1 million per event; with roughly one third of total revenue coming from the ticket price and the rest coming from sponsors.

As I said, I don’t actually know the numbers, but that was always my speculation.

also we figured by using the early bird pricing it would balance out since I’m sure many did not get that price, and paid a good deal more.

The actual numbers would be sweet! But not everyone is as transparent as us. :)