By Susan Taylor
TORONTO, March 5 (Reuters) - While not the premium liquor and prime rib parties of old, miners are laying on the cocktails again after several lean years, booking hotel lounges and nightclubs to twin drinks with deal making.
An upbeat tone at the world's biggest mining conference comes as global exploration spending snaps a four-year decline, underpinned by a rebound in metals prices and strong global economy.
After-hours plans at the March 4-7 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto range from cocktails for 200 at the Pinnacle Room, a 43-floor hotel venue with 360-degree city views, to a night at Rebel, a waterfront venue more familiar with rock stars than rock miners.
The parties are in stark contrast to grim affairs in recentyears, which were marked by tiny budgets, wilting veggie traysand downbeat guests.
But they also come with a catch - pitching ideas, strikingdeals and securing funding is the name of the game.
"It's speed dating, straight up," said Kevin Lonergan,operations director at Ireland-based Lisheen Mining & TechnicalServices.
Canada's Century Global Commodities CNT.TO chose adowntown hotel for its party after years of invite-only lunchesand 2015's office reception, where a project manager poureddrinks from the front desk.
"This (year's) party has a value because of the networkingopportunity - it's effective given the amount of activity goingon and people bringing deals to us," said Chief Executive SandyChim.
Goldcorp Inc G.TO GG.N sold out the #DisruptMining eventit co-hosted with KPMG, which awards up to C$1 million ($770,000) for the best business pitch to revolutionize mining.
Sunday night's party featured a dinner for nearly 600 withelaborate light displays and confetti cannons that marked theannouncement of the winner.
'NO NEED TO ACT LIKE SCROOGE'
Even tiny 'junior miners' that don't yet generate revenuesee value in opening their wallets wider.
Explorer Erdene Resource Development ERD.TO hosted dinneron Saturday for 50 Mongolian officials and industry players at ahigh-end steak house, where a double porterhouse steak goes forC$160.
"Juniors like us, we do something very focused," saidoperations vice president Michael Gillis. "There's a lot ofpotential pay off."
Red Cloud Klondike Strike said 590 investors, money managersand miners wanted to attend its pre-conference party on Fridaynight. The junior mining advisor, which only had space for 500,had 30 guests at its first party in 2012.
PDAC president Glenn Mullan said the days of "zombie" minersdoing distressed financing deals to keep their stock alive wereover. "We're enjoying some real indices of prosperity again."
Floor space was sold out at Toronto's convention center,Canada's biggest such facility at over 2 million square feet(186,000 square meters), with waiting lists for vacancies, hesaid.
Last year, global exploration spending rose 15 percent toabout $8.4 billion, and S&P Global Market Intelligence on Mondayforecast a further increase of up to 20 percent in 2018.
John Gravelle, the interim CEO of Colt Resources GTP.V ,said an industry uptick and buoyant battery metals prospectsmeans many companies are upbeat.
"Miners don't need to act like Scrooge anymore, but we needto respect the shareholders whose money we're spending," hesaid. "Spending money and depriving ourselves of sleep is partof being here - but we need to wake up with the business cardsthat will generate the payback."($1 = 1.2991 Canadian dollars)