Conference. Boring to death?

Attachment 30715

A chief executive officer was to give the keynote address at one important conference. That’s why he asked one of his top employees to write a twenty minute speech for him. After that important event the chef was furious. “Why did you write an hour long speech for me?” he bellowed. “Half the audience got up and left the hall before I finished my speech!”
The confused employer replied, “Sir, I wrote you a 20 minute speech. But I also gave you the two extra copies you requested.” 
The only thing I’m confused about this story is the attentive and concerned audience. I guess in a real life nobody would notice any difference. Am I right? Do you have an experience of attending any really interesting IT training or event? If not, in which one would you like to participate?
Personally, I think nearly all conferences are dull and boring.
What topics are the most interesting for you?

That has to be a joke. It can't be a real scenario.

I have attended numerous conferences and keynotes that were fantastic as well as a few that were pretty bad. I was at a conference yesterday where the keynote was short (set for 30 minutes, but lasted 20). It was pretty bad. The speaker was not horrible, but he didn't read the audience very well. The material he presented was very basic and was a bit more marketing than it should have been.

That is where I see a lot of conferences fail -- they become pure marketing or sales instead of educational or informational.

I attended Microsoft Build. It's keynote this year was pretty bad too. I think it missed its mark completely. In the keynote they were marketing and selling why developers should start using/targeting Windows 8. The ironly of this -- or the reason it was bad -- is that this is a Windows 8 Developer conference. If you weren't already sold on developing Windows 8, then you probably weren't going to spend the thousands of dollars it would cost to attend the conference. Of course, the keynote could have been aimed at the people watchig on the live stream, in which case, it might not have been so bad.....