Mining Conference “Greed Creep”

 “Greed creep” in mining conferences.

Mining conferences are funded by the presenting companies paying a fee to present, with probably the cheapest being PDAC at around C$2,600 per booth, to Swiss and London conferences at around £12,000 per company.

Sadly greed is now creeping in, as conferences have seen the opportunity to make more money by charging investors to attend to meet the companies that paid to participate to meet investors! 

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Cape Town 121 booth

121 Mining Forum, Cape Town, 2023.

 

 “Greed creep” in mining conferences.

Mining conferences are funded by the presenting companies paying a fee to present, with probably the cheapest being PDAC at around C$2,600 per booth, to Swiss and London conferences where fees are much higher at around £12,000 or more per company.

To be a success and justify the investment made by the presenting companies, conferences need genuine investors to attend and meet relevant companies. It used to be so simple, register, and in you went.

Sadly greed is now creeping in, as conferences have seen the opportunity to make more money by charging investors to attend to meet the companies that have paid large sums of money to be there!

The Australian based Diggers and Dealers is very expensive to attend, around £1,200, and I have only attended once, as it also requires a premium priced air ticket, as it’s in the UK summer, and accommodation is very hard to find, as it’s based in the small mining town of Kalgoorlie, WA.

PDAC then followed a couple of years ago, charging C$25 per day, which isn’t that expensive, even over the four days of the conference costing around £60. With over 25,000 delegates, it generates quite a tidy sum.  And with the Wednesday half day where nobody arrives on their booths first thing in the morning due to the festivities the night before, they have a cheek to charge to go in at all, in my opinion.

Now, Denver Gold Group are charging delegates to the European Gold Forum US$175 or US$200 to attend their event!  They have over 100 companies attending normally, and it’s expensive, so why oh why do they feel the need to charge the investors too?

I’m fed up of paying eye watering hotel or Airbnb prices just because the conference is on, and now the organisers are joining in with fees of their own.

As a result I have decided to be selective from this year, and for the first time in 15 years I’m giving PDAC a miss.  I checked out the presenting companies and there were only a handful I really wanted to meet, and some will come over here at some point, so I’m giving the frozen waste land that is Toronto in March a wide berth this year.

I have also decided to give the European Gold Forum a miss too, partly in protest at the introduction of the charge, and partly because there were only really a couple of companies I really wanted to meet.

I can easily afford to go, but that’s not the point. Without investors those conferences are failures, they need our participation.

By being greedy conferences are denying their participating companies the opportunity to attract new investors, as often I find one by chance after listening to a presentation or having a meeting.

I am receiving multiple invitations for all the mining conferences at the moment, suggesting after a very painful couple of years, investors are not registering in great numbers, even for the free to attend ones such as 121, Global Mining Finance, and Mines and Money.

There’s been no excitement, and investors have seen declining portfolio values as mining companies have lost value, so not exactly a great environment to introduce charges!

If Tesco’s introduced an admission charge, would you pay it?  Or would you go down the road to Sainsburys where there was no admission charge?

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City Investors Circle is based in the financial district in the City of London

We present interesting and exciting junior mining companies listed on the ASX and TSX stock exchanges to a group of city professionals, and private investors, all of whom are active investors with a mandate to invest in junior mining companies.

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