Is there any value in pay-to-play awards/conferences?

Hi there Elpha community!I'm a few months into my new role as Head of Product at an early-stage civic tech startup, and I've just received a nomination to receive an award at an event called Intercon (https://www.intercon.world/). I assumed it was a scam of some sort seeing as the award I would be applying for is "Top 100 Tech Innovators" (which, hey, we all love a confidence boost from time to time but honestly let's be real). Out of curiosity, however, I spoke to one of the event organizers and did some research on the conference, and it seems there's a fair amount of positive reception from past attendees.Yes, there's an application fee of $50 and if you receive the award you still have to pay to attend the conference--albeit at a discounted rate--but it seems like there could be some benefits to attending as well, namely networking and publicity for my company.Have any of you participated in something like this before, and, if so, was there any value in it at all or did it just end up feeling like a scam?

cadran·Jul 21, 2020

I haven’t participated in one but have received linked in messages about them and my take is that it’s not worth it. Not sure I’d call it a scam exactly but it seems expensive and like they are giving out awards (that you pay for) in order to get you to pay to attend a conference that you otherwise would not attend.