Nearly nine-hundred attendees, including fundsters and high-net-worth advisors, met to hobnob and be educated on a number of investing issues at the IMCA 2014 New York Consultants Conference.

The event was held at the New York Marriott Marquis, the Sci Fi-esque venue located on Broadway between 45th and 46th streets, right at Times Square.

If you haven't been to the Marquis, the conference floors are consist of rings of balconies encircling a central bank of glass elevators that rocket up and down like star ship pistons (let's assume that star ships, when invented, will have pistons).

On these balconies are floor space for hobnobbing and waiting about, surrounded by various ballrooms and conference facilities.

On the sixth floor, where the majority of the conference activities took place, exhibit booths lined the balcony edge encircling the elevators. Exhibitors included Fidelity, ING, Nationwide Financial, Thornburg, Raymond James, Charles Schwab, Forward, American Funds, and PowerShares.

Featured speakers included Loomis Sayles vice chair, and PM, Dan Fuss; Liz Ann Sonders, senior vice president and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab; Frederic Mischkin, the Alfred Lerner Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, and David Laibson, the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Fundsters note. Among the numerous sessions and workshops devoted to issues related to investing and the challenges of running an advisory practice, a great deal of attention was devoted to the subject of fixed income, ETFs and alts.

Networking was lively during the breaks and Monday evening thanks to a variety of snacks, including various tapas, savory meats in cabbage and one notable snack table that featured an assortment of nuts, including cashews, peanuts, Jordan almonds and candied pecans, which attendees were able to mix and match and store in oyster pails (the official name of those boxes you mistakenly refer to solely as Chinese takeout boxes. You're welcome.)

Monday's lunch was held in the Broadway Lounge, located in the hotel's eighth floor. Unfortunately, space was tight and attendees were rushed through the serving stations with a TSA-like efficiency. Time for hobnobbing was limited during this meal.

Monday's reception featured strongly mixed cocktails and assorted beers and wines on the sixth floor balcony. Attendees vamoosed quickly after Monday's reception. This is the center of Manhattan of course and plenty of options for frolicking. Attendees and exhibitors also left quickly at the conference's end on Tuesday in hopes of escaping the weather (both real and forecast). 

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