7 ms·

Tech conferences moving north as Trump policies turn off attendees

78 points by gasull 8y ago

chmod775 8y ago
Not very surprising. There's little invective besides familiarity with a location to keep these kinds of conferences in any particular place. So even small problems like these can send them packing. The attendees are from all over the world anyways. The big selling point is going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket to Canada vs buying one to the US + having to deal with the hassles of US immigration and customs.
- tclancy 8y ago
  >There's little invective That is a wonderful Freudian slip!
- Gys 8y ago
  > The big selling point is going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket to Canada vs buying one to the US + having to deal with the hassles of US immigration and customs. Exactly. I for one voted for Canada for exactly that reason.
- msumpter 8y ago
  Worked previously for a company owning many trade shows/events and we purposefully moved the shows to various destination cities to encourage the tourism aspect, a new city every year was tough so we repeated cities eventually. We never ventured into moving an existing US based show out of country, when we did international shows they were always stood up as separate. But considering the political climate today, it really isn't a surprise to move one north of the boarder.
trexen 8y ago
The Trump policies are those of the democratically elected leader, which means it's the will of almost the majority of Americans that there should be such travel restrictions. Seems a strange and disturbing choice that the US public has made but their willl should be respected. Democracy provides for people to vote out the leadership if they don't agree, although the Google seems to suggest trump is currently looking good for reelection.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  > Seems a strange and disturbing choice that the US public has made but their willl should be respected. Sure. The US has, for now, chosen to adopt hostile immigration policies, which will incentivise international conference organisers to avoid it, like they do other countries with hostile immigration policies. I'm not sure where you see a problem? > although the Google seems to suggest trump is currently looking good for reelection Eh? How did Google do that?
- Larrikin 8y ago
  The majority of people who voted did not vote for Trump.
  - RightMillennial 8y ago
    True, but Trump got the votes where they mattered. Since we're categorizing votes, a majority of people didn't vote for president at all (44.37%) when compared to Clinton (28.43%) or Trump (27.20%) [1]. [1]: https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/ https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/
- samfisher83 8y ago
  Trump didn't get the majority of the vote. He won the electoral college.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    You are responding to a more defensible statement than what was made above, as it said "Americans" and not "voters". Turnout was 55.7% and Trump got 46.1%, which means he got about 25.7% of the possible voters. Clearly not "almost" a majority.
    - dllthomas 8y ago
      And of course there are plenty of Americans who aren't eligible to vote.
mbrumlow 8y ago
One conference that I have never heard and now it is "conferences" -- as in more than one are moving north? Also at first glace this conference looks like it was setup by big players just to have their "own" conference. You see, real conferences where where real innovation and tech happen at are not concerned with being "the fastest growing". Looking at the lineup this is clearly for something setup for what I would assume to be mostly executives to be brainwashed by much larger companies to use their products. Nobody wants to go and listen to the rubbish a bunch of CEOs have to say about stuff their engineers should actually be talking about. Just really feels like somebody figured out money influence and market control can be had with hosting a conference and so now we have "Collision" -- which sounds like a complete knock off of "disrupt" But who knows, maybe somebody here has gone and will correct me. EDIT I did not read every line of the article, and yes, 2 other conferences were mentioned, but the blurb about collision still stands.
- Svip 8y ago
  What about the Creative Commons conference and RightsCon? They were both mentioned in the article.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    Thanks, I must have skimmed the article too fast I stand corrected. "Conferences" is now properly plural for the situation. To be honest while not a Trump supporter I really don't like reading anything talking about him because it probably is going to be biased in one way or another.
    - wavefunction 8y ago
      "Bias" is a noun and "biased" is the adjective.
      - mbrumlow 8y ago
        Thanks. No more post before coffee.
boltzmannbrain 8y ago
Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) is a top tier AI research conference that attracts people from all over the world, including the leading minds across academia and industry. The main utility many of us get out of it is the in-person interaction with the community -- research ideas are brainstormed, papers are shared and argued, collaborations are developed. Following Trump's immigration policies last year, there was discussion of moving NIPS '17 from Long Beach, CA to Cape Town, South Africa. This year the conference is returning to it's home Montreal; not to mention a lot of AI initiatives are making their way north of the border, unsurprisingly.
linsomniac 8y ago
There was some expression that people weren't coming to PyCon 2018 because of Trump, but it did end up selling out a month before the date. I feel like usually it would sell out earlier in past years, but I don't have the dates in front of me. Since this is the "big Python conference", it usually has a lot of international attendance, so it seems like it would be hit particularly hard by this sentiment.
- msumpter 8y ago
  IMO the conference market has taken a hit in general prior to the Trump administration. For the previous several years, attendance and sponsorships were trending down, it seemed like most companies budgets were being pulled from onsite training to virtual and sponsoring companies wanted to focus on their own niche mini show around their products only. We had a healthy percent of international attendees that came in every year, I can only imagine with sentiment being customs/immigration is getting worse for travelers, that would discourage attendees from coming in.
  - oligopoly 8y ago
    Market got flooded with too many bs conferenced trying to make a quick buck.
    - msumpter 8y ago
      I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I think we didn't fully appreciate how much the 'social' aspect of the show was more important than the 'education' we provided. We de-epmhesized the after show social hours and other parties, and instead focused on marketing the education factor, and gradually the fun left the show along with the people. But that's my personal opinion.
retox 8y ago
More like the human shit filled streets of progressive cities turn off attendees.
jankotek 8y ago
To be fair most of those policies were introduced before Trump. USA is paranoid compared to other countries. For example I would love to visit Iran, but that would future visits in USA very difficult. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-east/iran/usa-stops-esta-visa-waiver-program-for-tourists-who-visited-iran https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-east/ir...
rsimmonds 8y ago
This isn't that surprising when you break it down. While it's rarely thought about or discussed - Toronto isn't a small little town in Canada. It's the 4th largest city in North America. Bigger than Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. Combine that with the fact that the Canadian dollar is weak and you've got the perfect match for tech companies.
- volkl48 8y ago
  Toronto is more like 10th in size (metro population). Your comparison is based on population within "city limits" which are arbitrary and widely varying as to how much of the urban area of a city they cover. Your overall point isn't invalid, just pointing it isn't that big.
- adsfasdfsad111 8y ago
  this.
saiya-jin 8y ago
US was never truly welcoming after 9/11 to outsiders, more like 'tolerated but we're watching you'. Now things gradually declined into current swamp. Why on earth would any sane self-respecting human being go in US? To be humiliated before entering the country and give up any privacy? My fiancee wanted to visit US, she has these rosy images from movies in her head. I convinced her that atm that is not a place spending vacation in - you can't really remove entering/leaving experience from rest of vacation. Sure, it's just couple of 1000s $$ we will spend elsewhere, US economy will be fine without it, but I am sure we're not the only ones
ataturk 8y ago
Trump will unify the two Koreas, end Iran's nuclear ambitions, and bring the world closer to a lasting peace and he will still be despised by ideologues who can't get over themselves and who simply don't understand how the world really operates, who is pulling the strings, and what their horrifying goals are.
kazinator 8y ago
Maybe it's not just the policies, but also the sheer travel-related annoyances.
oicu812 8y ago
The current US restrictions apply to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and certain Venezuelan government officials and their immediate families. Were any significant number of conference attendees from these countries? I think not. This is just a chearleading article by a Canadian newspaper. Oh Canada! Our home and native land! Trump is bad and that makes us good by comparison for thee!
- wink 8y ago
  I'm not saying it's reasonable thinking, but I've also heard many Europeans (including me) putting this as another "why would I visit the US?" point.
RickJWagner 8y ago
Could also be the homeless, needles-and-feces-on-the-street and high cost of attendance at the usual conference venues. I'm looking at you, San Francisco. :)

78 points by gasull 8y ago

Not very surprising. There's little invective besides familiarity with a location to keep these kinds of conferences in any particular place. So even small problems like these can send them packing. The attendees are from all over the world anyways. The big selling point is going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket to Canada vs buying one to the US + having to deal with the hassles of US immigration and customs.

tclancy 8y ago
>There's little invective That is a wonderful Freudian slip!
Gys 8y ago
> The big selling point is going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket to Canada vs buying one to the US + having to deal with the hassles of US immigration and customs. Exactly. I for one voted for Canada for exactly that reason.
msumpter 8y ago
Worked previously for a company owning many trade shows/events and we purposefully moved the shows to various destination cities to encourage the tourism aspect, a new city every year was tough so we repeated cities eventually. We never ventured into moving an existing US based show out of country, when we did international shows they were always stood up as separate. But considering the political climate today, it really isn't a surprise to move one north of the boarder.

trexen 8y ago

The Trump policies are those of the democratically elected leader, which means it's the will of almost the majority of Americans that there should be such travel restrictions. Seems a strange and disturbing choice that the US public has made but their willl should be respected. Democracy provides for people to vote out the leadership if they don't agree, although the Google seems to suggest trump is currently looking good for reelection.

rsynnott 8y ago
> Seems a strange and disturbing choice that the US public has made but their willl should be respected. Sure. The US has, for now, chosen to adopt hostile immigration policies, which will incentivise international conference organisers to avoid it, like they do other countries with hostile immigration policies. I'm not sure where you see a problem? > although the Google seems to suggest trump is currently looking good for reelection Eh? How did Google do that?
Larrikin 8y ago
The majority of people who voted did not vote for Trump.
- RightMillennial 8y ago
  True, but Trump got the votes where they mattered. Since we're categorizing votes, a majority of people didn't vote for president at all (44.37%) when compared to Clinton (28.43%) or Trump (27.20%) [1]. [1]: https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/ https://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/
samfisher83 8y ago
Trump didn't get the majority of the vote. He won the electoral college.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  You are responding to a more defensible statement than what was made above, as it said "Americans" and not "voters". Turnout was 55.7% and Trump got 46.1%, which means he got about 25.7% of the possible voters. Clearly not "almost" a majority.
  - dllthomas 8y ago
    And of course there are plenty of Americans who aren't eligible to vote.

mbrumlow 8y ago

One conference that I have never heard and now it is "conferences" -- as in more than one are moving north? Also at first glace this conference looks like it was setup by big players just to have their "own" conference. You see, real conferences where where real innovation and tech happen at are not concerned with being "the fastest growing". Looking at the lineup this is clearly for something setup for what I would assume to be mostly executives to be brainwashed by much larger companies to use their products. Nobody wants to go and listen to the rubbish a bunch of CEOs have to say about stuff their engineers should actually be talking about. Just really feels like somebody figured out money influence and market control can be had with hosting a conference and so now we have "Collision" -- which sounds like a complete knock off of "disrupt" But who knows, maybe somebody here has gone and will correct me. EDIT I did not read every line of the article, and yes, 2 other conferences were mentioned, but the blurb about collision still stands.

Svip 8y ago
What about the Creative Commons conference and RightsCon? They were both mentioned in the article.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  Thanks, I must have skimmed the article too fast I stand corrected. "Conferences" is now properly plural for the situation. To be honest while not a Trump supporter I really don't like reading anything talking about him because it probably is going to be biased in one way or another.
  - wavefunction 8y ago
    "Bias" is a noun and "biased" is the adjective.
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      Thanks. No more post before coffee.

boltzmannbrain 8y ago

Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) is a top tier AI research conference that attracts people from all over the world, including the leading minds across academia and industry. The main utility many of us get out of it is the in-person interaction with the community -- research ideas are brainstormed, papers are shared and argued, collaborations are developed. Following Trump's immigration policies last year, there was discussion of moving NIPS '17 from Long Beach, CA to Cape Town, South Africa. This year the conference is returning to it's home Montreal; not to mention a lot of AI initiatives are making their way north of the border, unsurprisingly.

linsomniac 8y ago

There was some expression that people weren't coming to PyCon 2018 because of Trump, but it did end up selling out a month before the date. I feel like usually it would sell out earlier in past years, but I don't have the dates in front of me. Since this is the "big Python conference", it usually has a lot of international attendance, so it seems like it would be hit particularly hard by this sentiment.

msumpter 8y ago
IMO the conference market has taken a hit in general prior to the Trump administration. For the previous several years, attendance and sponsorships were trending down, it seemed like most companies budgets were being pulled from onsite training to virtual and sponsoring companies wanted to focus on their own niche mini show around their products only. We had a healthy percent of international attendees that came in every year, I can only imagine with sentiment being customs/immigration is getting worse for travelers, that would discourage attendees from coming in.
- oligopoly 8y ago
  Market got flooded with too many bs conferenced trying to make a quick buck.
  - msumpter 8y ago
    I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I think we didn't fully appreciate how much the 'social' aspect of the show was more important than the 'education' we provided. We de-epmhesized the after show social hours and other parties, and instead focused on marketing the education factor, and gradually the fun left the show along with the people. But that's my personal opinion.

retox 8y ago

More like the human shit filled streets of progressive cities turn off attendees.

jankotek 8y ago

To be fair most of those policies were introduced before Trump. USA is paranoid compared to other countries. For example I would love to visit Iran, but that would future visits in USA very difficult. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-east/iran/usa-stops-esta-visa-waiver-program-for-tourists-who-visited-iran https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-east/ir...

rsimmonds 8y ago

This isn't that surprising when you break it down. While it's rarely thought about or discussed - Toronto isn't a small little town in Canada. It's the 4th largest city in North America. Bigger than Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. Combine that with the fact that the Canadian dollar is weak and you've got the perfect match for tech companies.

volkl48 8y ago
Toronto is more like 10th in size (metro population). Your comparison is based on population within "city limits" which are arbitrary and widely varying as to how much of the urban area of a city they cover. Your overall point isn't invalid, just pointing it isn't that big.
adsfasdfsad111 8y ago
this.

saiya-jin 8y ago

US was never truly welcoming after 9/11 to outsiders, more like 'tolerated but we're watching you'. Now things gradually declined into current swamp. Why on earth would any sane self-respecting human being go in US? To be humiliated before entering the country and give up any privacy? My fiancee wanted to visit US, she has these rosy images from movies in her head. I convinced her that atm that is not a place spending vacation in - you can't really remove entering/leaving experience from rest of vacation. Sure, it's just couple of 1000s $$ we will spend elsewhere, US economy will be fine without it, but I am sure we're not the only ones

ataturk 8y ago

Trump will unify the two Koreas, end Iran's nuclear ambitions, and bring the world closer to a lasting peace and he will still be despised by ideologues who can't get over themselves and who simply don't understand how the world really operates, who is pulling the strings, and what their horrifying goals are.

kazinator 8y ago

Maybe it's not just the policies, but also the sheer travel-related annoyances.

oicu812 8y ago

The current US restrictions apply to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and certain Venezuelan government officials and their immediate families. Were any significant number of conference attendees from these countries? I think not. This is just a chearleading article by a Canadian newspaper. Oh Canada! Our home and native land! Trump is bad and that makes us good by comparison for thee!

wink 8y ago
I'm not saying it's reasonable thinking, but I've also heard many Europeans (including me) putting this as another "why would I visit the US?" point.

RickJWagner 8y ago

Could also be the homeless, needles-and-feces-on-the-street and high cost of attendance at the usual conference venues. I'm looking at you, San Francisco. :)