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Sheryl Crow, LL Cool J, Michael Douglas...Is it the Grammys? The Oscars? No. It's the conventions reaching out to bring in bigger and bigger crowds.

Sheryl Crow gives a private performance recently at the Yankee Dental Conference at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. (John Gillooly)

For Dr. Todd Belf-Becker, 29, last week's Yankee Dental Congress was just about as good it gets for a dentist.

The event, which drew 28,000 dental professionals to Boston, was a five-day cornucopia of meetings, exhibits, and networking opportunities. Belf-Becker went to seminars and ordered new equipment. He checked out hot trends in electric toothbrushes, like the one with a light that goes on when you brush too hard. He met Red Sox stars Carlton Fisk and Coco Crisp, who were signing baseballs at a booth for protective dental gloves. And on Friday night it got even better: He attended a private performance by Sheryl Crow, who played a 75-minute set at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

"I feel like a kid in a dental candy shop," Belf-Becker said as he headed for the concert.

This is precisely what conference organizers are aiming for - delegates who are busy, happy, and plentiful. "We plan the meeting to be exciting," says Dr. Andrea Richman, a Carlisle dentist and president of the Massachusetts Dental Society, which also invited actress Geena Davis to speak at a Saturday "celebrity luncheon."

There was a time when meeting organizers thought less about "exciting" than "useful." Professionals attended conferences to network, stay current, maybe get a break from the routine. But at a time when conferences in this city are growing both in number and size, professional groups are vying with one another to grab celebrities - both as speak ers and performers - to increase their chance of drawing a crowd.

"What drives the conference business is attendance and corporate sponsorship," says Joyce Kolligian, executive director of the annual Simmons School of Management Leadership Conference in Boston, which has signed up singer Gloria Estefan as the May 3 keynote speaker. "And if you are going to do the record-breaking numbers . . . you need celebrated names to get the draw."

"Everything is about what speaker can you get, what political leader can you get, what entertainer can you get," said Pat Moscaritolo, president of Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Unless there is real sizzle, people don't think there is any steak there."

The gold standard for star-studded Boston conferences lately would have to have been the AARP convention at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center last year: It featured rapper LL Cool J, basketball legend Bill Russell, actors Michael and Kirk Douglas, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, workout king Richard Simmons, and entertainers Rod Stewart, Tony Bennett, and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others.

But in the past few months there's been plenty of sizzle at other Boston conventions. Rock band Duran Duran performed last month at the annual fund-raiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay. U2's Bono spoke last year at the Mortgage Bankers Association's meeting, though not about mortgages, along with former boxing champion-turned-pitchman George Foreman.

Some groups seek celebrities who'll perform double duty - stars who draw a crowd but have an actual connection to the event or cause. Actor Michael J. Fox, an advocate for Parkinson's disease research, addressed the 2007 BIO International Convention, produced by the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Henry Winkler is speaking at the April convention of the Council for Exceptional Children. The council advocates for special education, and Winkler, who played the Fonz on "Happy Days" and had learning challenges as a child, has coauthored a series of children's novels inspired by his experiences.

But often the connection is tenuous. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu will be keynote speaker in November for an international conference sponsored by the US Green Building Council, though he's associated with poverty and human rights issues, not environmentalism.

"[Tutu] is not connected with green things," acknowledged Taryn Holowka, spokeswoman for the council. "But we have an overarching sustainability-in-your-life message, and everything he stands for is about sustainability. It kind of inspires attendees to realize that even though they are green in all aspects of their life, there are so many other facets of their life that can be improved upon."

One reason Boston conventions are seeing more celebrities is that the new convention center, which opened in 2004, is attracting, larger, higher-profile events. The number of citywide conventions increased from 18 in 2004 to a projected 28 for this year.

The formula is simple: The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the draw. The one-day Simmons School of Management Leadership Conference, which is attended by some 2,500 professional women and raises money for scholarships, has been able to charge delegates $695 in part because of the high-profile roster. In past years, the leadership forum has recruited the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Queen Latifah, Madeleine Albright, and the late Benazir Bhutto.

"Oprah Winfrey we've had twice," said Kolligian, who directs the conference. "No one else has been able to accomplish that."

This is all good news for speakers bureaus, of course. David Lavin, founder of the Lavin Agency, a speakers bureau with an office in Boston, says his business has been growing 20 percent a year for the past five years. "Conferences are competing with other conferences for delegates and also for sponsors and exhibitors," he said. "Why should someone exhibit at your trade show unless you have a bigger audience?"

But buyer beware: Celebrities can be problematic. The first time Oprah spoke at the Simmons conference, she wouldn't get off the stage. "We gave her an hour, and she went on and on and never stopped talking," Kolligian says. "She was actually on stage for an hour and a half; finally [her friend] Gayle King had to tell her, 'It's time, Oprah.' "

Nor is every celebrity a good fit for every conference. Simmons learned that the hard way.

"We've had Jane Fonda, but she did receive a lot of negative feedback," Kolligian says. "She was not our best choice, talking about gender issues that a lot of us have forgotten about. She still has a lot of that '70s attitude: I am woman, hear me roar. She is still rattling the cages. But it's a little passe now."