Imagine a world in which you’re charged £100 ($165) for two days’ worth of electricity.

Where a basic internet connection costs £300 ($500) for two days. (That’s even more expensive than the WiFi at the Charlotte Street Hotel in London, which costs an astonishing 30p/min – or £18/hr.).

Where you cough up £3,500 ($6,000) for a tiny booth, in the hope of securing a few leads for your fledgling business.

Welcome to the world of the trade show.

I had press registration for ad:tech this week, but I wasn’t planning to attend because I was too exasperated by their constant spamming. At the time of writing, I’ve received over twelve messages – some by email, some by SMS – “reminding” me about the conference. We get the message, guys. You want us there.

But if you did pay – and rolling up on the day as a visitor would have cost you over £1,000 – what would you have got for your money?

Well, networking and product demonstrations, mainly. Many of the big players in the online advertising and marketing industries were there (though not all of them), so it was a chance to connect with potential clients, suppliers and even competitors. Fair enough. But I know several companies who are doing alright at the moment and are skipping out on these events because they’re not prepared to pay such high charges.

If you’ve ever been to a trade show, you’ll know that it’s a charming mix of free condoms (”safe advertising”, said the slogan), sour apple lollipops and slappers in high heels doling out flyers to sweaty, overweight ad execs. I wandered around today totally confused as to why anyone would shell out over a thousand quid to be here. Is anyone really so lazy that they can’t pick up the phone to arrange a couple of meetings?

Now, ad:tech isn’t the only offender. Not by a long shot. (Indeed, the fact that it’s the most successful advertising technology conference suggests that exhibitors consider it the best value for money.) But they sure are profiting nicely from the industry.

That internet connection? It’s an ethernet cable for one machine only that you’re not allowed to share. And if you haven’t paid your ground rent when you arrive, they will escort you and your equipment off the premises.

At least one company this year, seen arriving and setting up on Monday night but strangely absent by Tuesday morning, is understood to have had trouble coughing up in time. One exhibitor described “attack dogs” roaming around Olympia 2, hunting down exhibitors who hadn’t paid for their “extras”. Nice, guys. Really nice. Way to go supporting an industry in crisis in the middle of a recession.