The planners of PodCamp Boston learned the hard way in October 2007 that a conference signup is far different from a conference attendee, as a few hundred of those who had committed to attend the unconference failed to show up. This sparked a discussion of whether the conferences should charge attendees in the future.
Social platform The Point is hoping to solve that problem by running a campaign to drum up support for [Blog Indiana](https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/indiana-blog-conference), after the organizers began to fret about possible low turnout. According to the blog at [O'Dwyer's](http://www.odwyerpr.com/blog/index.php?/archives/126-Safety-in-Numbers.html), “The Point is working for a group of local Indy bloggers who foresaw the two key problems in producing such an event: funding and interest. They’ve set a goal of 200 early sign-ups to greenlight the two-day conference.”
The Point hopes to leverage its social network to increase turnout, and to accurately gauge interest in conferences or similar events–giving organizers time to scrap their plans rather than disappoint anyone.