A conference company is a for-profit business unit that organizes specialized forums for one or more industry. They profit by charging admittance (generally around $1000 - $2000 dollars per person), selling sponsorships to the events and by selling documents associated with the proceedings, called conference books .

In general, most conference companies have no official ties or obligation to the industries they organize for. The conferences generally capitalize on new business trends or growing industries -- the type that are described in publications like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times.

Most conference companies generally have either the word "research" in its name, or an impressive sounding acronym that sounds official and potentially authoritative, yet general enough to apply to nearly anything.

List of conference companies:

Institute for International Research (IIR)

World Research Group (WRG)

International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC)

Center for Business Intelligence (CBI)

The Wall Street Transcript (TWST)

Marcus Evans

JD Events

Jupiter Research

Gartner

Frost & Sullivan

World Congress

Giga

Forrester Research

Metagroup

Conference Board

Street & Smith's Sports Group Conferences