Patent ID: 7937287

Claim:
A computer implemented method of developing an event designed to appeal to prospective attendees associated with an event-owner, said method executed by at least one processor, said method comprising: receiving by the processor one or more attributes of an event to be developed and preferred values of the attributes, wherein said preferred values of the attributes are collected from a survey completed by a plurality of the prospective attendees; modeling by the processor the collected prospective attendee preferred values to generate weighted prospective attendee preferred values for the attributes; building by the processor a user interface decision support tool from the weighted prospective attendee preferred values, wherein said user interface decision support tool is configured to simulate the prospective attendees' preference for subsequently developed events; defining by the processor a first event as a function of a set of attributes and a first set of attribute values received from the event-owner that correspond to the set of attributes; defining a second event as a function of the set of attributes and a second set of attribute values received from the event-owner that correspond to the set of attributes, wherein for at least one attribute the corresponding attribute value of the first set is different from the corresponding attribute value of the second set; displaying by the processor for the event-owner the first and second events; and providing by the processor via the user interface decision support tool a numeric comparison for the event-owner of the first event to the second event as a function of the weighted prospective attendees preferred values, said numeric comparison quantifying the prospective attendees' preference for the first event to that of second event; receiving by the processor breakout session preferences from a plurality of the prospective attendees utilizing Q-sort surveying; analyzing by the processor the collected breakout session preferences to determine one or more of the following for potential breakout sessions: the reach of the breakout sessions, frequency of the breakout sessions, and overlap of the breakout sessions.