But like some other areas of the industry, the market has become saturated with dozens of conferences and exhibitions being held each year, including giants like HostingCon and ISPCON, a challenge for the operators of smaller events.

For two years, utility hosting services provider Layered Technologies (layeredtechnologies.com) has worked to distinguish LT PACT (layeredtech.com/ltpact/) event as an important consideration among hosting related events.

Though it is held by a hosting company, LT PACT is not strictly self-serving, but is designed to benefit its attendees and the presenting companies within the context of the environment of Layered Tech's customers and partners, says president and COO Todd Abrams.

"It's not directly a sales objective for Layered Tech," says Abrams. "It's really about broadening the overall knowledge base of the people there, as well as experts of the industry that our clients and partners don't really get to talk with."

Returning to Las Vegas, Nevada's Caesars Palace Resort from June 25 to 27, LT PACT 2008 will offer presentations from industry analysts, key industry players, Web hosts and other leaders, discussing issues that are pertinent to the industry.

The conference, now in its third year, will provide attendees with further industry insights, the ability to interact with new products in workshops and ways to boost their revenue with improved business practices.

An acronym for Partner Accreditation and Certification Training, PACT was originally designed as an informative venue for partners and customers, but established itself as more of a networking event in its second year, says Abrams.

"It's more of a networking event among our clients and partners," says Abrams. "What we're trying to do [with] LT PACT is bring potential clients and partners together in a tighter-knit networking environment. Overall, it's a learning experience, knowledge-base transfer event in a fun-filled environment."

This year's presentations will cover a range of topics including security, dedicated hosting, utility, virtualization, SaaS-based models and applications, marketing and social networking platforms and uses.

The event kicks off on June 25 with a cocktail party. LT PACT 2008 will run through to June 27, where it will conclude with the popular Texas Hold' em Tournament, which awards $5,000 in cash prizes and is free to enter.

Past sponsors such as Microsoft, HP, 3tera, cPanel, Delcom Group, Savvis and SWsoft are all on board once again, along with a few new ones, says Abrams.

"[LT PACT] allows us to get direct feedback from our clients," says Abrams. "We talk about different technologies, we bring some direction to our clients and partners and what we're doing to better our platform and get some overall direction from other people in the industry.

"We've been able to take that knowledge and the different interaction and use it to address some of our products and some of the decisions we make from a business standpoint."