Brent:

Great question. What evidence do I base that statement on?

First, hiring more than 3,000 professional speakers in the past ten years for audiences from 200 to 25,000 people. I was one of those people that hired marquee names for large audiences. Then I stopped.

Second, conference evaluations and research from attendees and nonattendees were clear that we should stop hiring marquee name speakers because it was not meeting their needs. One annual event was drawing close to 21,000 people and they begged us to stop the marquee madness. They wanted practical, relevant information. So we stopped spending the $25K, $50K, $100K on famous people and put money towards paying industry speakers and professionals with relevant messages.

Third, the CSP designation does not equate to level of quality or level of customer satification. It means that a speaker has taken a certain number of hours of professional training, has been in the industry at least three years and has passed an application process.

What else do I base this on? My own personal experience. I'm tired of going to an event and hearing a marqee name speaker that has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my industry, my job or my daily work. It's a waste of money. I wrote about this very  issue here & you'll see lots of comments from people who agree...

http://jeffhurtblog.com/2010/03/02/an-open-letter-to-association-board-members-committees-executives/

PS...In my 20+ years of planning meetings and events, I've never once seen any research that a marquee name puts butts in chairs or causes people to pay a conference registration fee. It's simply not true.