I was planning a trip to Las Vegas to attend a conference there when I came across Kathy Lien's blog which listed the Traders EXPO New York 2008. Fortunately, the expo was a week before the Vegas conference so I decided to hop on along to New York. The trip from Sydney was enjoyable, the on-board entertainment options was enough to keep the time flying by.

I found that the Traders Expo in New York City to be similar to the Trading Expos that we have in Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre – but bigger and probably 3 or 4 times more people in attendance. The free seminars were of similar format as well – speakers would speak and most would endorse their products or services at the end of the talk.

In the trading industry there are two types of "sales and promotions" events. There are these "expo" types which promote many legitimate products and services (although one still needs to be wary) from dealers, brokers and education services. The second type is the "hard sell" promotion style where there is only usually one company presenting with one or a few speakers. They would teach you the very basics, reel you in, then give you the hard sell, by really pushing the product then drastically slash the already over-inflated prices for the product or service. These are the types YOU must be wary of. I highly recommend you research any type of service before you go impulse buying at these "hard sell" types of conferences. The Traders Expo in New York is more of a soft sell and many of the speakers and companies already have a decent level of reputation.

I’ll be writing more about my experiences and observations in next few days – be sure to check this post for updates!

I will be writing about topics from the Traders Expo 2008 in New York City:

• Top 10 Preparation Tips Before Attending a Trading Expo
• General Observations and Insights
• The Speakers: (well the ones I attended like: Steve Nison and Kathy Lien)
• Insights into the Forex Industry
• The Questions you must ask your Forex Broker
• Day Summaries