one of my friends & i helped out a vendor before at a conference, and while it may be that there were several conferences going on at the same time, the cost to attend can be a huge factor also...i remember being told by the person we were working for that members (i won't name which conference/organization it was) will often wait & come back toward the end of the conference looking for discounts...we were, under no circumstances, suppose to offer those types of discounts...however, discounts were given based on the volume of merchandise purchased...now i don't understand why any vendor would
raise their price (unless that item was going like hotcakes)....it's just that you need to look at it from the vendor's point of view...they are there to make money....& just like you're looking for a "price break", so are another 20-30 people every hour...it costs them money to attend, just like it costs you (& i'm sure it's actually a whole lot
more than it cost you)...especially when you figure in the cost of the license, the merchandise, transport to & from the conference, the room & board, labor (i didn't work for free
)...and, when the vendor revealed to me how much some of the licenses of the different orgs cost (woo doggy!)...just a different point of view...