Nearly 1,000 attended today's Personal Finance Society (PFS) Annual Conference despite delegates having to battle stormy weather to get to the venue, the prestigious new ICC Centre near Newport, Wales. 

Just over 1,200 registered for the event with 959 attending on the day, including Financial Planners, Paraplanners and exhibitors. 

The number of PFS members attending was 647. Also attending were 34 board members and staff, 191 exhibitors and 17 speakers. Others included event staff, PFS guests, students and press.

Most of the 15 sessions, which focused mainly on Financial Planning professional development, were packed with some completely full.

PFS interim CEO Donald MacIntyre hailed the strong attendance as a visible sign the profession was "moving forward."

Mr MacIntyre told Financial Planning Today that there was a great mood of positivity and professionalism at the event with initial feedback on the sessions "very positive."

He said: "I'm really pleased with the quality of sessions and the quality of speakers. We've made the quality of the programme a big focus for this year and it's paid off.

"I'm genuinely pleased with the turnout. We were concerned about the weather but it hasn't put many people off. The mood has been very positive throughout the day and people seem to have really enjoyed it."

The PFS has been beset in recent weeks by criticism of the role of parent body the CII in managing its finances but Mr MacIntyre said he had received virtually no comments about this topic during the day.

Most people were focused on networking and learning from the speakers, he said.

The PFS is the 40,000-member professional body for Financial Planners and provides the Chartered Financial Planning qualification among a number of qualifications.

The body holds smaller-scale national conferences, such as today's event, in between much larger 'Festivals of Financial Planning.' Last year's Festival at the NEC was attended by 2,500 people.

The theme of this year’s event is ‘Duty Bound - Loving Your Clients to Death’.

The hashtag for the event is: #pfsdutybound