So it turns out that I’m not the only one who is thoroughly underwhelmed by A Voice for Men’s lineup of conference speakers for their upcoming International Conference on Men’s Issues, By Which They Mean How Men Are Oppressed By Women’s Sexy Butts.

Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, some of the regulars are complaining that AVFM is delivering much less than it did last year, for a much higher price — with ticket prices running a steep $650, currently discounted to the high. high price of $399.

Yep, attendees of the conference will be paying as much as $650 just to get in to the event, not counting the cost of airfare, hotels, or even food at the conference itself.

They could easily end up paying more than $1000 for the privilege of watching Elam and a bunch of his AVFM cronies blather on about the same crap they blather on about in countless hour-long videos available for free on YouTube. The only “big name” in the mix is Warren Farrell, whose fame as a Men’s Rights advocate peaked maybe twenty years ago.

As fundude1 put it:

The lineup looks terrible with just Elam, Golden, Palmitier and Farrell. Both Golden and Palmitier really bring nothing to the table. They are both psychologists (like Elam and Farrell) and are UNKNOWN.

Is it churlish of me to point out that neither Elam or Farrell are actually psychologists?

There is no diversity at ALL among the people in terms of academic backgrounds, general popularity, etc. Last year’s conference had a much more broad array of characters that had FAR more popularity in general.

Fundude1’s outrage meter went further into the red after he discovered how much the whole thing was going to cost.

But he wasn’t the only one upset by the underwhelming lineup and overwhelming cost.

To take just one example: therock6658, a Men’s Rights subreddit regular with considerable sympathy for AVFM, wrote a long and mournful comment lamenting “the fact that AVFM is … half-assing this whole event.”

I hate to say this but I was looking forward to this announcement for months when Elam stated that he was going to put the tickets on sale for the second of April, but once they went on sale and I looked at the roster, it ultimately turned me off to the entire men’s rights movement.

Yep, that’s right: AVFM has bungled their conference so badly he’s reconsidering his support for the entire Men’s Rights movement.

Considering the price, he added, “it just does not look good for the outcome of this particular conference.” Nope.

As for the lineup, he complained, it

does indeed bother me as much as it does everyone else. It’s mostly people from AVFM and not enough people from external sources. 10 speakers present as opposed to the 14 from last year plus everyone involved in the panel discussions. … I really hope that this is more due to budgeting more than anything else because I would hate to learn that this is really due to greed or anything like that. Yes, I do feel that donations to AVFM have been going down as of late and perhaps that’s the big reason why this conference shrank from last year.

Given that AVFM’s last fundraiser brought in less than half of what Elam had been demanding, I’d say that was a safe bet.

Also, you may recall that at the start of the year, Elam announced that he “hope[d] to make some actual profit” from this year’s conference.

Apparently Elam never took economics in college, because then he might have realized that you can’t simply make more money by jacking your prices as high as you want; if your prices are too steep, no one will buy what you’re selling.

But hey, as Elam apparently explained to therock6658, having fewer speakers means “more time for attendees to socialize with the presenters, etc.”

WIN A DATE WITH PAUL ELAM

Actually, that’s not quite right: PAY THROUGH THE NOSE FOR THE CHANCE TO MAYBE TALK TO PAUL ELAM

I actually pretty much have a good mind to make my own anti-feminist conference myself and do twice as much in 1 day than AVFM is trying to do in 3.

You know, I do too.

I think it’s fair to say that there’s a good chance AVFM’s conference won’t happen at all.

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