Hello Mike,
I am the author of a simple client server conference/Registration software product that has been used by an association for their conference the last two years (2008, 2009). It has most of the wrinkles worked out and could be tweaked to meet your needs (it does not have email confirmation, but that could be added depending upon your time requirements).
http://www.willamettepcservices.com/prodsb.htm
If interested, you can contact me via that site to avoid spam...
Regards,
Todd
Hi all,
I am registration coordinator for a very large conference that draws upwards of 1200 people.
We are still using excel to keep track of all the data. My boss recently gave me the go ahead to upgrade to better software.
The problem is that we have no clue what software is out there for our tasks.
We keep track of names, emails, addresses, group affiliation and all that normal stuff. We would like the software to be able to send automated confirmation emails, but not as mail merges, rather individually as the registrants are marked as paid.
Any advise would be welcome
Thanks,
Mike

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic