[wavesum]

Same experience here. The first they scout you through your website, and act as if they had done some research, and drop the bait of free booth, then they "vet" you over Skype and later let you know you're a winner.

"By charging big companies big money we can offer promising startups like you this opportunity for free"

All you need to do is buy couple of tickets for 1500+ euros and the free booth is yours.

Ouch. But we've come this far, maybe it's worth a shot...

When you get to the place you realize it's 500 startups like you, crammed shoulder to shoulder. Very few investors around...

[nakedrobot2]

Yup!

"Shoulder to shoulder" is not an exagerration either. I think it was 50-80 startups per wall - no more than 1 meter each. Like a supermarket. Totally depressing and wrong. I actually did not meet one single investor there. But of course there are one or two lucky outliers to give a testimonial. Ugh! Stay far, far away.

[frankdenbow]

I had a similar experience in Dublin but the rest of the conference they produced was very good (great speakers, well produced). There wasn't enough foot traffic to justify the cost and travel expenses for a startup booth. They should drop the fees for startups.

[mattdeboard]

> They should drop the fees for startups

My impression is startups paying their fees is their business model

[frankdenbow]

Its not the only way they make money, though (sponsorships and ticket sales for regular attendees)

[dkersten]

Very few investors around...

I disagree. We met a LOT of investors. The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up).

I completely agree with the "shoulder to shoulder" thing though. It was very cramped :(

[dkersten]

Are my comments being downvoted because I didn't have quite as negative an experience as others?

Granted, there weren't thousands of investors there, but my startup personally had a busy schedule meeting with them - that week (before, during and after the event itself) we had meetings with approx. 40 different investors.

Nowhere am I saying you should pay to pitch or pay to meet investors. I'm merely saying that whether or not an event is worth it depends on what you do at it (and beforehand) and that you can't expect it to be worthwhile just for showing up, because it won't. I found it useful, others didn't - I only wanted to shed light on why I thought it was useful and what we did to make it so.

NOTE: We also did NOT take part in the pitch contests.

[Blackthorn]

I think you're being downvoted because all you're saying is, essentially, "no you're wrong" without any details.

[dkersten]

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

I thought I was giving a counterpoint to the statement "there were very few investors" and adding advice from my experience:

The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up).

My other comment similarly was a counterpoint to "the only winner was the organizers", giving my experience and why I think I had the experience I did.

I'm sorry that this came across as "no you're wrong" without any details. :-(