Conference is a positive thing, but I don't see how it can pump the price almost 100% to $20.00. If you think that is likely to happen you are living in a lala land. Conference will be mostly bitcoin fans from and around NYC area and few others that will fly in for the event.
I have to agree with this. However, there might be other very positive things in sight in the very near future that might or might not be announced at the conference. One of them is reliable sepa-transfers @ mt. gox and the much bigger issue of securing one's wallet might be at least partially solved with the release of the new client that has built-in encryption.
It's not one thing that will raise the price, it will be many things. And I won't speculate how high, that's just useless. Might go over $15, might eventually go over $20 if the hype for Bitcoin goes way up again due to good news and more news in general.