Laurie Rogers 
If you're comfortable, perhaps you can share what event it was that you attended. As everyone has stated, some events are giant sales pitches (I really don't care, because I'm there to network) and if the speakers interest me I'll listen, if not I'm out hamming it up in the lobby with the rest of the crew - which I did do at one event Rob and I attended a couple years ago - I sat and talked to one person in particular, we had some wine, food and did a lot of talking about business.Originally Posted by Emjay Burton
Local events - I know the guys here in Vancouver that host our local events aren't really pitchers, they do actually have value in their events. If one appeals to me, then I'll go, if not, I just don't, because it's local, so you're meeting the same people. Local events would really depend on who's running the group and if the other attendee's are going to be of value in your business. You always go on the premise that someone MAY know someone that can be of benefit to your business - you never who knows who.
We're pretty lucky here in Vancouver, we've got a lot of heavy hitters and experienced internet marketer's, our biggest problem is getting everyone to converge on a set schedule to do an event lol
Internet Marketing (as with any other business) to me, is at the very least, 50% relationship building (80% of which is networking at events) and if you're not willing to do that, you will find you may have some success or not much at all.
And I'll toss in a P.S. here - not all guru's are uptight pretentious snobs trying to get every cent you have in your pocket, in my experience most are pretty decent and fun folks.
Rob,
I was going to toss your bit about travelling in my initial post, but I thought I wouldn't bug you for once about it LOL!
