Agreed. I organized a startup conference (http://thestartupconference.com) for 3 years in 4 cities, always with PayPal as payment. Some advice: make sure you are incorporated. Definitely don't use a personal account to receive payments. Assume that most of the money may be stuck for a while, but know that you'll get your payments eventually, so arrange for backup financing.
Bottom line: if you do this as an amateur, expect to be treated like one. You can't script banking like you'd script ssh.
> know that you'll get your payments eventually, so arrange for backup financing.
How easy would you say it would be to get a loan with "I have $N-thousand dollars stuck in my Paypal account, expected to clear" as collateral?
...actually, wait, that sounds like a [banking] startup idea:
> "We accept payments for an event into an escrow pool, then lend you (with interest) a percentage of the escrow-pool as an advance to set up the event, then release the escrow-pool to you automatically if-and-only-if there aren't too many complaints after the event [otherwise the issue goes to a set-length arbitration, and then we either release the money to you, or refund it in its entirety.] For trusted repeat event-creators, we may increase the loan percentage up to 100%, and may delay loan-interest accrual until after the event-date. We're also partnered with an event underwriter who you can allow us to ensure your event with automatically, in case of black-swan event failure."
Bottom line: if you do this as an amateur, expect to be treated like one. You can't script banking like you'd script ssh.