The Family Reunion Function?

Very soon, many IBOs, particularly in WWDB, will be gearing up for, or recently attended a major function called "family reunion". I still recall attending this function as an IBO. It was held in the Rose Garden in Portland Oregon. The Rose garden seats between 15 to 20 thousand people. Although the area behind the stage is closed off, the court area is full of seats so it could possibly hold up to 20,000 IBOs or more. Amway apologists like to denounce the experience of critics but they conveniently overlook the fact that many critics sat in crowds in tens of thousands of IBOs. My sponsor, in the years before I joined, spoke of an FED function at the (then) Seattle Kingdome where there were about 50,000 IBOs in attendance.

For me, family reunion was the most expensive function I had attended. The ticket itself was $250 and being in Hawaii, a round trip airfare ticket was quite expensive as July is peak travel. We also had to dish out for hotels, rental cars and meals. I believe my total expenditure for this function was more than $1200 when it was said and done. Now I know that not all IBOs live in Hawaii but even if you live in California, you likely had to fly or drive some serious miles to get to this function. I'm not sure where the function is held now as my understanding is that there aren't nearly as many IBOs attending anymore.

The function was about hype and excitement. The speakers told tales of struggles that was overcome by perserverence and the never quit attitude. That you will make it one day if only you will sitck it out and never quit. Of course what goes on unnoticed by many is that in a crowd of 15 to 20 thousand IBOs, only a handful of diamonds can be supported by a group of that size. At the time, I didn't stop to do the math myself or I would have seen through the line that anyone can go diamond.

The Saturday evening portion of the function was about some diamonds flaunting their alleged wealth. We saw displays of jewelry, fabulous vacaations, mansions and sports cars. Of course, the diamonds never said they actually owned these goodies. Makes me wonder if some of them rented fancy cars to bring to the function as some of the diamonds probably could not afford it. After the function ended for the night, our upline expected the group to go without sleep trying to "associate" with the diamonds and other pins. We were told that their success would somehow transfer to us if we spent enough time with them.

Of course everyone went home all fired up but within a week or two, it was business as usual with no noticeable growth in anyone's group.

My question to IBOs or information seekers. Did you get what was sold with these functions? Did your PV go up in a sustainable manner? Did you start getting a flow of new downline? Was the money spent on this function ever made up by increased business? If you cannot answer yes to these questions, then what was the purpose of attending? Looking back, I'd have to say that in a business sense, the function was a waste of time and money, which is ironically what most people join the business for, but end up with less of when they get involved.