Oh.. and another reason the conference may do nothing for bitcoin - is that it might happen to coincide with some other news that grabs the general public's attention more.
Even if the the big stories are economics related.. any bitcoin news developments could get lost in the noise.
If the CNN's of this world show up at the Bitcoin conference, the story will make it on the news. It may get bumped by, say, the Dow collapsing. But eventually it will make it.