The National Pheasant Fest And Other Odd Conferences

Many of us attend conferences either as a work requirement or to learn new things for our personal development, and they are often relating to fairly standard topics that appeal to a lot of people. However, there also lots of much more niche and somewhat unusual conferences out there, and below are just a few that are weird, wonderful and what you’d never expect.

First up is the National Pheasant Fest , an annual event held in the US celebrating all that is wildlife conservation, hunting &amp habitat management related. Organised by Pheasants Forever &amp Quail Forever, the event includes pheasant hunting and dog training seminars and is pitched as an event for all the family. You’ve missed it for 2010 but all you pheasant fans can catch the 2011 one in Omaha, NE.

If meat isn’t your thing then maybe the American cheese society’s annual conference will be more up your street. Dubbed ‘Cheese-a-Topia’, this year’s event is in Seattle at the end of August and will feature seminars, interactive sessions and keynotes. My personal highlights would be the interactive cheese making session and the keynote speech about the mind of a cheese consumer.

Sticking with the food theme, we have probably my favourite of these conferences, The New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association Conference. This is held every year alongside the Ice Cream Awards and celebrates ice cream manufacturers and their innovations, with one of last years winners being a Creamy Chocolate &amp Raspberry with a Hit of Chilli ice cream-yum!

And finally, no ‘weird’ conference article would be finished without mentioning the Weird Paranormal Conference, as anything with the words ‘weird’ and ‘conference’ has to make it into the top ten. This is an annual paranormal conference where anything form the Loch Ness Monster to alien abduction is covered.

So those are some the unusual and unexpected conferences I have heard of and thats without even getting started on conferences that are held in unusual venues- maybe I′ll write about that at a later date.

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