As the organizer of a similar conference myself, take my opinion with a grain of salt. 1. It depends of course. There are millions of conferences and networkin

As the organizer of a similar conference myself, take my opinion with a grain of salt. 1. It depends of course. There are millions of conferences and networking events. Some are great, some are terrible. You not only pay a price to attend, you also pay in terms of your time. 2. I always say that networking events pay off with an horizon of about 6 months to a year. Every time I went to an event with a specific, short-term goal, I failed. But amazingly, I bumped into people that I actually wanted to get in touch with eventually. And it helped me later. 3. Another major thing that pays off is the "buzz". When you go to conferences, you hear all the latest stories before they get written anywhere. You are ahead of everyone who didn't show up. Sure, bloggers will cover this or that rumor, but being there and having heard it all gives you an edge. Whether that edge will eventually be valuable depends of course.