He rented a suite at some hotel, summoned a gathering of friends, acquaintances under the title of "2005 First Annual Time-Travel Symposium", hoping that a true time traveler would find the novelty of appearing at the very first Time Travel Convention much too alluring to pass up.
And while the concept appeared really interesting as some sort of temporal flypaper in getting time-travelers to appear and reveal the concept as very real, it was just too hokey to actually work. Besides, what aspect of time travel did the symposium offer to actually entice a true time traveler to show up other than mere rhetoric?
Perhaps, a souped-up Delorean or two might have done the trick.
Steven Hawking did the exact same thing. He printed up invitations, made sure it was in the papers and surprise, no one showed up. Either time travel is impossible or they think Steven Hawkins is a dick and didn’t want to go to his party.