No Highway Robbery at the Mesa, Arizona Conference

I recently wrote an article complaining about the high costs of attending some of the national genealogical conferences: hotel rooms of more than $150 a night, $43 a day for parking, $10 a day for Internet access, and admission to the conference itself which nowadays can exceed $200. Judging by the comments posted at the end of the article at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/09/highway-robbery.html, many people agree with me.

My next scheduled genealogy conference will be at the Family History Expo 2008 to be held November 14th-15th in Mesa, Arizona, and the “highway robbery” described in my earlier article does not apply here.

Now, this is NOT a national conference, but there are some lessons to be learned here. It's tough to predict attendance at this local event, but the same organizers typically attract more than 1,000 attendees to their similar conference in St. George, Utah. The Mesa event is being held for the first time, so there's no telling how many people will show up. However, Mesa and nearby Phoenix have a much larger population than St. George, so there is an opportunity for a big crowd. I'll be curious to see how many do attend.

I just checked the conference web site at http://www.myancestorsfound.com/events/upcoming.php?event_id=43 and discovered no less than FIVE hotels listed. Best of all, the MAXIMUM price at any of them is $99 a night plus taxes. One hotel (a Best Western) lists rooms at $69.99 a night plus taxes. All of them provide free parking, and four out of five provide free Internet access! (The fifth says it has Internet available but doesn't mention any prices on the web site). All of the hotels also provide free breakfasts, and most provide microwave ovens and refrigerators in the rooms. 

Early bird registration is available now at $65 (Hurry, that price expires September 15.), but if you procrastinate long enough, you will pay $90 at the door.

There will be many, many differences between the Mesa conference, sponsored by a private company, and the national conferences sponsored by NGS and FGS. For one thing, the two-day conference in Mesa will NOT feature 100+ nationally-recognized speakers. It will not have sponsored luncheons, and it will be missing a number of other things. It will have a syllabus on CD. The conference banquet costs only $33 and features a "Musical Journey with Beau Sharbrough."

I cannot write a side-by-side comparison of this local conference versus the national events as there are too many differences. It is an "apples versus oranges" comparison. However, I do like the prices. I even found a $198 round-trip airfare – not bad for a 4,600-mile round trip! I think I can afford to go to this one. Maybe you can, too.

You can read more about the Mesa, Arizona, Family History Expo 2008 at http://www.myancestorsfound.com/events/upcoming.php?event_id=43.

P.S. The November weather usually is great in Mesa.

Comments

[Dae Powell]

Mr. Eastman, thank you for promoting this conference. Holly Hansen and her crew have knocked themselves out getting this one together. It should be a fun conference with many good speakers and lots to learn and share. I'm presenting "Researching in City Directories" and have an interactive one called "What Next?" that has been quite successful locally and online. I hope to meet several of your readers there.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Pam Warren]

Wish I had known about this one earlier. I attended a great 4 day family conference at BYU a month ago, but this one has many of the same speakers. The Mesa Expo is considerably less expensive (if you don't take trave/lodging into account), albeit two days shorter. I may try to get to this one anyway.

[Linda Enz]

I for one am lookig forward to this conference. I hope that it will become a regular affair. We need more local events as many of us can't affford the high costs of traveling as you have pointed out in several of your newsletters. Thanks for mentioning this I hope that it will increase the attendance and thus spur more of this type of event.

[W. David Samuelsen]

Speaking of the thing... Don Anderson, Director of Family History Library hightlighted the blog article you wrote about the expense of Philadelphia FGS this morning in the opening session of the Utah Genealogical Association fall conference. He showed it to the audience since he was speaking of the changing role of the genealogical societies from the past to the future.

I hope I can attend the Expo in St. George, Utah Feb 27-28, 2009. It is largest of the expos by MyAncestorsFound group. Last year it attracted over 3,000.

[Joseph C. Dorsey]

I found it interesting, the different costs of attending various conferences. It makes me feel good about our full-time RVing. I meet a lot of individuals RVing who also are in to genealogy. One of the things we have in common, besides genealogy and RVing, is that we are able to keep the cost down, as the price of staying in an RV park is so much less than a hotel. We also can arrive anywhere from a few days to a week early and stay afterwards to enjoy the area. We are self contained with all of the food and beverage for a longer stay and it affords us all the opportunity to attend more conferences, rallies, and local events around the country. The cost to get there is also a lot less than an airline ticket. Of course, if one is not retired and has time constraints it would be impossible to RV to all of the events, especially if they are in another state.

[Lynn Mathers]

If I may, Mr. Eastman, I would like to put in also my good words for the Mesa venue. I've had several years' experience vendoring at The Mesa Convention Center (with scrapbooking/rubber stamping companies), and it's a great place to work with. Setup and breakdown of the booths is a pleasure.

Also, for local attendees, the parking at the convention center is free! And plentiful, to boot. I'm happy to see a significant genealogical conference showcased there. I hope there is a large turnout for it, and wish it much success.