Marcus Evans review: Surprisingly Surprised

I happened upon this site out of curiosity regarding another company. I was seeing what I would find about a company I know, namely Marcus Evans, to compare with one I was considering doing business with. I was surprised at my findings here and elsewhere. So much so, that I was propelled to write a rebuttal - of sorts. It seems the same fellow has copy and pasted his opinion all over. As we all know, some folks who are bent on anonymously bashing something as we see here have one or two reasons to do so: they believed themselves cheated, they failed, or they are an activist. Hard to say which this fellow is, but his words and vehemence have prompted me to put aside all I am doing to put some perspective on this.
I worked with Marcus Evans in 2000 to 2002 as a Summit Producer in both the Ebiz and Supply Chain sectors. (In fairness, I will note that the Conference Teams historically ran slightly different than the Summits due to the economies and scale.) In ways, those years were equally as great as they were stressful. There is NO doubt that Marcus Evans is not a results-oriented workplace. As a producer, I worked closely with my sales (vendor and delegate), marketing and event management team. The work I did was demanding, heavily researched, creative and results oriented. The programs produced were top notch -- C-level execs from Fortune 500 companies with the speakers being typically Fortune 50. For the most part, these programs were HUGELY successful by attendance with repeat customers on both the vendor (serious money) and delegates (not as much...). The website testimonies are real -- someone like myself was responsible for pulling together the end-of-event surveys where those types of things were always written by attendees. Those events took immense amount of effort, expense, and expertise to pull off. In case you were wondering, booking out a 5 star resort for 4 days with catered meals, conference space, top-notch serviced is not cheap. Not to mention 6 month production times, etc. Holding a vendor to a contract makes sense when there are only 20 or so supporting a 400+ attendee event. This is a for-profit business after-all. Truth is vendor space is limited. Yes. That is what the event value is built on.
I can get into the sales call aspect, but that should be self-explanatory by assessing the writer and what he says combined with your knowledge of sales processes. I know what it is, and that type of sale isn't for me. Plain and simple. Clearly its not for him either!
Well anyway, I've spent enough time here. I'm certain the fellow knocking the company above never attended an event and is only responding to a limited perspective of process, pressure and such. I will NEVER say that Marcus Evans is perfect. I had my issues too. Get into the nitty gritty of everything and there is always something that isn't perfect. Just look at ourselves! What I will say is that they DO stand by their events. They deliver value. Consistently. Even if you don't like the brand of gas they use.
Enna