I'm not sure how many people here attend these things, but let me give you a little scenario.

The company I work for has been attending ISP and ASPcon for a few years.
While it is expensive to display, the oppurtunity to Showcase your worth (for lack of better wording) is priceless.
let me explain.

Yesterday, just after we closed the main offices for the day a call came into the biussness Line. Normally we let the answering service pick up, as we have emergency support lines for clients. Any way, one of our techs was there and picked it up.

She came to me and said "I'm talking to this guy who is talking above my head... he wants to talk sales." Now I am not a sales person by any means, but I took the call.
It was a prospective client looking to outsource his support, and wanted to know if we could handle his buissness.
He explained to me what it was he did, and then stated that he did'nt need an answering service. I told told him, that technically, i could answer his questions ( and did by the way)but that i wasnt in a position to talk contracts

I gave him our URL and suggested he contact the buissness office mon.

During the course of the conversation, this gentleman told me that he had seen our booth at a tradeshow in Baltimore in the early spring, and while he was'nt looking at the time, he picked up our brochure.
This guy held on to this stuff for over over six months.
We get half of our new contacts this way. (the other half comes from client recommendations.)

So it pays to go to these things.

Sure,
You have a product thats for ISPs, its definately worth it to go to tradeshows.
But if you are an ISP , going to a tradeshow with just all ISPs aint' worth it :)

Good story!I liked that!

CLEARVERT

I have to disagree. As an ISP, these trade shows are vital.
For instance Billing Software companies show their stuff, Hardware companies show things like new radius technologies.

As well just going to these things can provide a wealth of information for Webhosting company's, and the Networking oppurtunities are boundless.
Not all ISP's (ie the latest trend VISP's)want to provide web space for customer's or host domains.. so by showing what you have to offer you can and probably will be able to provide a vital solution to these people.

We met a guy 2 years ago, who provides a service. It was just a passing thing, you know, Hi how ya doing? I'm such and such with such and such. A quick casual conversation that down the road may provide oppurtunities for Partenership or direct contract work...( in this case we provide support for over 7000 customers now)