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Overpriced Developer Conferences

189 points by duggan 15y ago

fridek 15y ago
Overpriced conferences are a great opportunity for local user groups. I'm a member of one and we often invite one of the local conference speakers to do a free, less formal talk after the first one. Honestly, I believe that a conference ticket should only cover a venue and speakers travel cost. Even with this days economy it's not hard to find a sponsor and with ticket price around 100-200 euro it's certainly possible to provide great experience AND free beer.
- petercooper 15y ago
  They can be an opportunity in other ways too. Some conference organizers are keen to engage with local user groups and can go out of their way to offer space for an on-site meetup or similar things and offer cut price tickets or even free entry. O'Reilly is a good example of this. They let a free side event take place at RailsConf for a couple of years and you could get right into the conference and mingle with all the RailsConf attendees for free! The only thing you couldn't do was go into the talks (and, yes, they had people checking on the doors.) I think O'Reilly also does "expo hall" passes for certain conferences for $25 or something.. it's almost like getting the best part (hallway track!) for free :-)
kayoone 15y ago
These overpriced tickets mostly come from the fact that companies/agencies send their employees there, book it as an expense and dont think about it. If every attendee had to pay this with his own private cash, i am sure the average ticket price would be much lower.
TomGullen 15y ago
I'd love to attend more conferences but as the author says it's too expensive to justify the cost in a majority of cases. I did always wonder why they are so expensive. Are they the big cash cows we assume them to be? Or are they far more expensive to run than we think them to be?
- smiler 15y ago
  Have you seen how much hotels, conference centres charge for venue, beverages etc :)
  - estel 15y ago
    Yes, but I've also seen how cheaply a number of other conferences/events are able to run in the same or comparable venues.
    - adrianhoward 15y ago
      Can you give some examples please? If there are people out there who can run large conferences cheaply I'd love to go look and figure out how :-)
  - morgo 15y ago
    Don't forget wifi :) I wish conferences offered two rates: one for just the talks, and one for talks + (coffee,wifi,lunch).
    - dagw 15y ago
      I was at a conference that did that. The end result was that there was no way to prevent people who hadn't paid for lunch and coffee from just walking up to the buffet table and taking lunch and coffee, and the food being gone before everybody who had paid for lunch had eaten.
robotmay 15y ago
I was incredibly excited when I found out Euruko is only £65; every other Ruby conference is extortionate. I don't care about fancy venues or freebies; I want to meet other people and learn something new. Most of these conferences are pricing out the people who actually want to learn, and instead mostly just filling their seats with people who know it already.
- Argorak 15y ago
  Most EuRuKo venues since it started moving were actually fancy :). I still remember the days when they were hard pressed to find locations in germany that gave a cheap room with a projector to 20 rubyists :/. I think the model of moving the conference through europe also ensures that there is a healthy competition between the user groups. But there are other great conferences at a similar price point in the ruby world, for example Ruby Lugdunum: http://rulu.eu/ http://rulu.eu/ .
  - robotmay 15y ago
    Ooh, I hadn't seen that one - sorely tempted to go to France for that now :D
    - Argorak 15y ago
      Sorry for replying again, but I saw it too late: Eurucamp (the event that was quickly organized for everyone that didn't get a ticket for EuRuKo 2011) will be continued. I would be surprised if the ticket price would be above the price of EuRuKo. http://2012.eurucamp.org/ http://2012.eurucamp.org/
  - decode 15y ago
    > a cheap room with a beamer A tip for you, and maybe other German speakers here: "beamer" is one of those German words that seems like English, but it's not (like handy). In English, the word is "projector", whether it's analog or digital.
    - 15y ago
ticks 15y ago
Having attended several conferences and paid for the tickets, I can only conclude that they aren't worth the price. It's a good excuse if you want to travel far or if your employer is paying though. Those that benefit most are the speakers, often well paid, free travel and accommodation, other freebies, usually a VIP event beforehand, they pimp their book for little effort, are often employed to do so, repeat same talk at other venues etc.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Please post a list of conferences where the speakers are well paid, I'd like to get on that gravy train ;-) So far, the conferences where I've spoken have done no kore than take care of travel and accomodation. CUSEC, which is a tremendously valuable conference for attendees, did give me a USB stick in the form of a lego block, I will cherish that long after people have forgotten USB technology. Anyhow, I'm not arguing with travel and accomodation, but as a Dad it can be lonely leaving my family even if it's a real pleasure to meet people at a conference. I personally find speaking to be a net financial loss by a large margin, at the end of the day I'd make much more money staying at home and consulting by the hour. Other speakers' mileage may vary :-)
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/ http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non... This conference listed that they paid each speaker $2000, plus travel and hotel. I understand the dilemma they're trying to avoid. By paying this rate, they're trying to ensure professional speakers of presumably high quality. They contrast this with other options: "Should all conferences be a single day long and only feature unpaid and inexperienced speakers? Should they all take place in second tier cities in low cost venues and force attendees to bring a packed lunch? Or should they be scrapped altogether, in favour of paid for content on a tutorial site..." There's definitely room for middle ground in there. Personally, "second tier" cities are probably better choices for many people, due to lower costs, but why mention "packed lunch"? You can certainly have great food provided in 'second tier' cities, and at a lower cost to boot compared to 'first tier' cities. Paying $2k for each speaker is certainly a nice gesture to the speakers, but they're setting up some extreme options here (basically spending $5k+ per speaker, vs nothing). Best value for all parties will probably be in between those extremes in most cases.
jrmg 15y ago
I think it's important to separate the question of whether _this_ conference was badly run, and too expensive, from whether all conferences are. This conference sounds like it was terrible. A well run conference, though, costs a lot more to stage than you might expect. Andy Budd wrote an illuminating article on the subject last year: http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/ http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non...
- k33l0r 15y ago
  I complete agree. We're a small Ruby consultancy and we run a relatively small Ruby/Ruby on Rails conference in Helsinki[1] and before we organised it for the first time we basically had no idea how much everything would cost. Expect to be overcharged for everything ranging from coffee, to having power outlets available, to having tables for registration. You can expect a cup of coffee at your venue (any venue) to cost the same or more than it would in a good coffee shop (but it won't be anywhere as near as good). Lunch will probably cost two times more than it would in a decent restaurant nearby (but good luck finding a restaurant that can cater to 200-300 people at once). Oh, and most venues have terms which prohibit you from using an outside caterer and thus you're stuck with the venue's own catering, no matter what it costs. In terms of compensation for speakers, we do our best to help them out, but the economics of running a small conference means that we can't afford to pay everyone's travel expenses (never mind paying them a non-insulting speaker's fee). I wrote a blog post partially related to this about a year ago: http://blog.kiskolabs.com/post/5661615036/controversy http://blog.kiskolabs.com/post/5661615036/controversy In terms of making money, we'd be much better off just concentrating on our core business, but then it's likely that Finland wouldn't have any Ruby conference at all. We'd love to be able to drop our prices to the sub 100€ level, but frankly that's not possible, not even with the great sponsors that we've been lucky to have in the past years. To help with the "high" ticket prices, we offer discounts to full time students and discounts at a few levels to people who have contributed to Ruby on Rails. In fact, if you have enough contributions to Rails, we'll give you a free ticket. [1]: http://frozenrails.eu http://frozenrails.eu
  - kd0amg 15y ago
Apreche 15y ago
The other problem with these conferences is their size. Most of them are very small. If you only have a few hundred people, the cost of the venue and such isn't divided by a large enough number. This is because these developer conferences are often so specific in their subject matter that the audience is small, and also because of the high price. I would like to see a convention, not a conference, that is for programmers, period. It should be gigantic like the big geek conventions PAX, Comic-Con, etc. Price could be $50 for three days. Thousands of us would be there. Lots of money to be made selling space to exhibitors. I would go every year.
- reustle 15y ago
  Let's make it happen. We can use the Javits Center in NYC.
  - ghurlman 15y ago
    Javits may be a lot of things, but it's definitely not a place to hold a conference/convention if you're trying to keep costs down.
  - Apreche 15y ago
    Javits is indeed awful. The Baltimore Convention Center is actually the best building, but Baltimore itself is awful.
  - yo-mf 15y ago
    If I had my choice of hosting a conference in the Javits Center, a Supermax prison, or Kabul, I might be tempted to choose the later two options...
- petercooper 15y ago
  With some extra space for lightning talks and self organized discussions/BoFs, perhaps. I actually think that would work. I would go too, if only to experience the diversity. I hate it when events get too insular.
- huxley 15y ago
keva161 15y ago
I went to a conference a few weeks back that was £300 a ticket. Factoring in accommodation + travel. The cost was well over £500. Was it worth it? Not really. The talks were put on YouTube and the 'goody' bags weren't that great. Some of the speakers were ok but I guess I would of rather put that money elsewhere. It wont stop me from attending conferences but lesson learnt.
daleharvey 15y ago
Ignoring the details of this particular conference, I think its mostly wrong to say 'conferences should be priced to cover X' There are conferences that go all the way from free to > $5000, I am constantly hearing about the amazing experiences at certain very expensive small conferences, as well as people enjoying the cheaper events (I recently helped out organising a conference that charged £50 full price). Obviously we dont want anyone to be ripped off, but generally if you have an expensive conference the organisers and the speakers have to justify that cost, and if they do so great. We also dont want to alienate new people from attending conferences, but as long as their continue to be free meetups and cheaper conferences as an alternative, I dont see the problem
mgkimsal 15y ago
I've run a conference for freelance web devs 2 years in a row, both times at a loss (though the loss is shrinking each year) but have tried to keep the ticket prices down, but also try to cover some expenses for speakers (hotel or travel for speakers from out of the area, primarily). Tried to keep tickets at a max of $99 the first year. Bumped up to $149 second year (with cheaper 'early bird' tickets both years). Bigger issue was trying to get sponsors to help defray costs. Given the nature of our conference - freelance web professionals (devs, designers, etc) - surprisingly a lot of companies weren't interested because we weren't 'targeted' enough. I may have just been getting polite brush offs, but I'd contacted 45 companies - many of whom sponsor other tech conferences - and had 3 sponsors the first year. A few only want to send a speaker and schwag, but no money. Conference venues and catering staff don't like to be paid in bobbleheads and cup holders, unfortunately. A note on schwag - I basically hate it. I think it's wasteful, and going to conferences where I've paid hundreds of dollars, then given a bag with a bunch of plastic crap made in and shipped from China just gets my goat. So we don't do 'bags of crap' at my conference. I don't think too many people have missed it so far. gentle plug - http://indieconf.com http://indieconf.com is setting dates for this fall in North Carolina. I remember inviting Amber to come speak at our first conference two years ago, but the timing didn't work out - perhaps we can get her to come this year. :)
- darkstar999 15y ago
  Can you elaborate on the costs? Why do you need catering? Thanks for eliminating the "schwag" waste. I also hate that crap.
  - huxley 15y ago
    Often it's a requirement if you have your event in a hotel. The hotel will sometimes have restrictions on who you can use to cater for breaks or lunches. People expect coffee or drinks during breaks and will complain loudly regardless of the registration fee. $7-10 per person for a coffee break is not uncommon.
    - mgkimsal 15y ago
gouranga 15y ago
Having not been to a conference for 10 years, is there anything I'm missing. I gave up after seeing no value and crappy hotels too often.
kelvin0 15y ago
Clicking on the link to this articles freezes systematically my Firefox!
ScottWhigham 15y ago
While I'm not a "fan of expensive conferences" per se, I thought this was a bunch of junk. FTA: "I’m a huge proponent against expensive conferences, as I feel that the point of these conferences in the first place is to get the community together to learn and meet each other." As The Dude once famously said, "Well, that's just like, your opinion, man." I don't think that at all; I think a conference that I pay for should be a learning experience. I think that, for $1000 or $2000 that I should be able to get vicarious experiences from attending the sessions/demos/labs that I would either (a) not have been able to receive elsewhere, or (b) not been exposed to. It should replace my time at a training class, for example, except that it should be broader experiences. Networking is fine but dude - you simply have it wrong if that's what you think programming conferences are all about. And you have it wrong if you think that tech conference attendance fees are paid for by the individual programmers/devs who attend. Oh sure, there are some folks who pay for these huge costs out of their own pocket but, by and large, this is a "job perk" or a "job training" event that is, thus, paid for by their company. Sorry but, for most companies, there is no "networking" budget for the programmers/devs.
jperras 15y ago
As a frequent conference attendee and speaker, a lot of the points that this post enumerates resonate with me. Our profession seems to have a love affair with conferences, and it's been getting worse year after year. I believe a large part of the problem is that many conferences are priced with the idea that the fee will be covered by corporations that pay for their employees to attend, as opposed to being covered by an individual. Businesses have an easier time justifying a $1000 conference ticket (especially if they're able to recruit or scout out new potential hires at said conference) than an independent consultant. But, conferences don't need to be quite so expensive. Conference organizers just need to reorganize their priorities. The best conferences I've ever attended (and paid for out of my own pocket) had less than two hundred attendees, were not held in a hotel, and had an incredible focus on the local community. The best example of this: http://brooklynbeta.org/2011 http://brooklynbeta.org/2011. Total cost for the conference was $100, and an additional $100 for the (optional) special event held the day before the conference, both of which included food, coffee, sponsored after-parties, more beer than we could finish, and the list of attendees and speakers was the best that I had ever seen. People need to start voting with their wallets a bit more. Stop going to conferences that suck. [Disclaimer: I now work for the organization that runs Brooklyn Beta, but did not work for them when I attended the conference in 2010 and 2011]
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  Step one: Decide that spending a few thousand dollars per year on conferences is excessive. Step two: Discover that if you lived in Brooklyn there would be a critical mass of colleagues living right there in town with you, such that you could put on an awesome local conference for one or two hundred dollars per person. Step three: Move to Brooklyn, at a cost of an additional N hundred dollars per person per month, regardless of whether that month includes an awesome local conference. Step four: ????? Step five: Profit! (Mind you, I completely agree with your strategy, which is why I live near Boston. I could tease myself just as I'm teasing you. ;) But I don't try to pretend that the strategy is designed to save money. Living in proximity to a number of excellent local conferences and meetups is very expensive - though, of course, you also get the awesome local restaurants and shops and museums and university libraries.)
jonheller 15y ago
I kind of agree. I've attended two conferences for the past few years: Pubcon and An Event Apart. Pubcon was priced at $699, and included three full days of sessions, with 5 different tracks. I learned a lot there, and felt it justified the price. An Event Apart was $899 the first year I registered, I believe, and this year is $1045. I work for a small company that pays these expenses, but I couldn't even justify asking for that this year. I know that I am paying to see some of the "biggest names" in the industry. Several of these people are excellent and entertaining, and I don't doubt their knowledge in the field -- Dan Cederholm and Jared Spool specifically. But do I really need to pay over $1000 to hear from the "biggest names"? I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes, Eric Meyer is a genius at CSS, but how do I somehow explain the ROI of using slightly more optimized CSS? Or one year AEA had a speaker who spent almos the whole hour somehow relating fashion magazines to web development. Ugh. I guess what irks me is feeling like I'm paying extra for the celebrity status of some of these speakers, when in reality, I'd most likely learn just as much _useful_ knowledge at a Wordcamp or one of the multitude of sub $200 conferences.
andrewmcdonough 15y ago
As a response to this problem, a few London-based ruby developers set up a no-frills ruby conference called "Ruby Manor". Talks were chosen democratically from the community, and were of a very high quality. They have had three so far, for, each for under £15 for a day, and they had enough money left over at the end of the day to buy us all a few beers. I think more than anything, they wanted to prove that you could have a great conference without charging large amounts of money: http://rubymanor.org/ http://rubymanor.org/
Su-Shee 15y ago
I'm seeing the same thing in Berlin these days - tech conferences of all kinds, usally 2 days, tickets ranging from 300,- euros up to 1200,- euros. Even if employers would send their developers to one of those two or three times a year - how many developers from different countries can even afford those prices? Half of europe simply isn't that rich and doesn't pay nowhere near that high salaries. On top of the two-days event you'd have to add hostel/hotel and travel (train or flight) - even with my (in comparison) rather high german salary I think twice if I really want to pay several hundred euros for an event of two days. And conferences don't have to take place in hotels, there's all kinds of venues - some hotter, some less so - one could meet with 50, 100, 500 or 1000 people. Some developer conferences simply take place in rooms of the local university for example. (Usally a not so hot location, ok..) I would really like to see that developer's conferences stay (really) affordable for _all_ of the intended audience.
deleted 15y ago
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vetler 15y ago
JavaZone in Oslo, Norway costs 1033 USD (or 5950 NOK) - a lot of money, and inflated by low dollar and high krone. Although I don't have any statistics, I believe few individuals pay this themselves - most participants get their company to pay for it. It's a great conference. Two days, seven (7) tracks. Food included, and lots of it. At the end of the first day there's ClubZone, which includes free beer. Is it overpriced? Perhaps. It could probably be done cheaper. The money seems to be going to make a great conference, though, and as long as most people don't pay for it themselves, I don't think it's a big problem. It's really the place you want to be if you live in Norway, so perhaps it is a bit unfortunate that it isn't more accessible to people who can't get their company to pay for it. Great conference, highly recommended. Many, if not most talks are in english. Unfortunately, the website seems to be broken at the moment: http://javazone.no http://javazone.no Videos from last year: http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011 http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011
nadam 15y ago
I've never attended any conferences in my life (and I have been programming for 25 years (16 years professionally)). I can buy books, read online, watch videos online on more programming topics than I have time/capacity for. My tolearn.txt is quite long all the time. For networking among programmers there are more than enough online communities. Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell? I am not saying that conferences are not useful, just I did not find the motivation yet to attend one.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  "Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell?" Umm.... it's generally not about selling right there and then, but making connections which may turn in to relationships. I've been to conferences and have made a great network of people I wouldn't have met otherwise, and some of it has led to projects/work months or years after our initial meeting. Most of the conferences I go to now are almost always just for hallway networking and socializing. 20 years ago, I used to wonder "how does someone run a business? how can you compete? it's a closed network - just friends of friends, etc". That's not 100% true, but it's more true than many people would want to admit. However, it's not all that hard to 'break in to' some circles and become part of a network. It does take time and commitment.
- diminish 15y ago
  Maybe it is time for virtual conferences, no Google Hangout for example?
- raganwald 15y ago
  "We're not computers, Sebastian, we're physical.”—Roy Batty
talmand 15y ago
My problems do not just include the ticket, here in the U.S. there seems to be a desire to have conferences in the most expensive cities possible. New York, Boston, LA, SF, etc. It seems as if there's this bubble filter that makes these people think developers are only in these locations. Please note, developers are everywhere, think about it. Often times the airfare and hotel equal or go beyond the costs of the conference ticket. Therefore I don't go to a lot of conferences, it's just too hard to justify them. At this point I'm more apt to look for more training-like gatherings where the speaker will discuss actual code instead of just talking about whatever random subjects. A speaker describing his favorite topic fits fine for local meetups and the like, I once spoke on a one of my pet peeves to a local meetup and it was great. I suggest that people look for more of that type of thing these days.
- excuse-me 15y ago
  It can be cheaper for people to get to these cities and get accomodation - as well as the millions that live nearby. I did a conference at the Anaheim convention center (=Disneyland). Flights to LAX were $200, there was a $10 shuttle from the airport and a line of $50 motels. Then I had to go to Pittsburgh, sounds like a cheap place. But flights were $1000 with a lot less choice (who wants to got to Pittsburgh?). There were only a couple of hotels near the convention center and they were $200/night. Las Vegas is one of the cheapest places in the US to get to and stay at, that's why it's so popular for conferences. Similarly for Amsterdam in Europe.
  - gte910h 14y ago
    There are several cities that aren't really expensive that have tons of cheap conference space, see, Atlanta.
- carols10cents 14y ago
  That's an advantage that we at Steel City Ruby Conf are actively promoting-- we're targeting Ruby devs who haven't been to conferences before and hoping that the cheaper accommodations and costs in Pittsburgh help.
adrianhoward 15y ago
It sounds like the conference Amber went to was a bad conference. They exist. Both expensive and non-expensive ones :-) A few thoughts... 1) Price != Value Just like everything else in life the price tag is not the way to judge a conference. It's the value received. Some free conferences will be worth £1000 to somebody. Some £1000 conferences will be worth nothing to somebody else. Some expensive conferences will suck universally. Some free events will too. If you want to know what a conference will be like - go look at previous years. Go look at the speakers. Go talk to people who have attended. Figure out if it's the right conference for you. For example, I was scheduled in as a speaker at last year's Agile 2011 conference. As a speaker it would have cost me about £6k to attend once you take travel from the UK, hotel & lost work hours into account. That's money out of my pocket - I run my own business. I couldn't attend at the last minute due to family illness. Judging by previous years not attending has lost me money. Agile 2011 is worth more that £6k to me and my business. To somebody in a different business, or with different skills - probably not. Another way to think about what conferences provide - ask yourself what your day rate is? How many working days of value are you expecting to get from the conference? 2) Experts need events too Yes there have to be events with a broad appeal for "high schoolers, college students and newbies to our industry". But there also needs to be events for "people who already know everything you’d need to know about the presented topics". The latter might not enjoy the former's events. The former may not enjoy the latter's events. Finding a balance that will attract and entertain both groups is really fricking hard. 3) Cost of large events I've been involved several times with organising conferences both small (e.g. BarCamp Bournemouth - 2days, 75ish people, free) and large (Agile 2010 with 1400ish people, five days, $1-2k & Agile 2012 - probably about the same). Anybody who thinks large conferences are massive money spinners has never been involved with organising a large conference :-) Large conferences are not usually cheaper to organise because of economies of scale. Quite the opposite if anything. For example take the venue. For small conferences you can often cadge a venue with some sponsorship, or find a small one in a slack period running cheap. You're flexible because you can change location on very short notice and there are usually multiple venues in a town or city that can support you. For large conferences there are few venues that can support you. Those venues' business is based around extracting every last penny from large events - and they're very good at it. They need to be booked months, sometimes more than a year, in advance. Which brings in a whole set of different organisational and cash-flow issues... They often require a guaranteed minimum income from the floorspace, which gives you much less flexibility of resizing and scheduling. Short version - it's really freaking hard. Then there's insurance. Speaker compensation. Programme selection. Managing submissions (if you have an open submission process) and/or finding speakers. The folk needed for security, health & safety, catering, etc. Food. Wifi. Transactional fees. Power. AV. Publicity. Etc.
ColinWright 15y ago
Some actual figures: For the last two years I have run the MathsJam conference, and I'll be doing so again this year. Last year the fee covered lunch Saturday, dinner, accommodation, breakfast, lunch Sunday, all tea, coffee and biscuits, and all sessions. No bag, paper, pen, coasters, pins, or other swag. Nada. You want it, you bring it. We didn't pay the speakers, and last year we had 60 lightning talks of 5 minutes each. Fantastic atmosphere of 120 enthusiastic people who love their subject and wanted to share stuff. 10% discount early bird, 10% discount for the unwaged. Full price: ukp165 (which is about usd200). That covered expenses with basically no head room. Note that accommodation was included, as was a ferry from the local train station.
roqetman 15y ago
Maybe more "gatherings" and less conferences are the way to go (invite a speaker once you have an interested group) - kind of like the way these BSD guys in NYC do it: http://www.nycbug.org/ http://www.nycbug.org/
digitalclubb 15y ago
I love how everyone screams about the 'open' web and yet these conference tickets are priced so highly. I think conferences are a fantastic idea.. you meet like-minded individuals and hear from really passionate presenters but the prices are crazy and thus I have only ever been to 1. I understand how there are certain costs to be factored in like venue and speakers costs but come on, there must be something that can be done so developers from all backgrounds can take part in such events.
petercooper 15y ago
This could be called "Overpriced [anything]." It seems someone went to a conference they thought didn't offer value for money. Sad, but it happens. People pay $200/hr for developers who don't get the job done, too, but that shouldn't diminish other developers who charge $200/hr and provide good value. So it goes with conferences. A TED ticket costs thousands of dollars, for instance, but people seem to enjoy going. The people who claim conferences should "only" charge enough to cover their costs, though, strike me as weird. That's like saying developers should only earn enough to cover their living expenses or that all software should be free. Sure, some conferences have altruistic motivations, but some are run by businesses who work hard at it and, well, deserve to make a profit.
perlgeek 15y ago
It seems this was a conference organized for profit, so the high price tag doesn't seem very surprising. I have been both at for-profit and "grass roots" conferences, and I like the latter much better. I have also helped organize a conference (German Perl Workshop 2012), here are some key facts: * price: 75€ regular fee, 50€ for speakers, 250€ for people sent by companies (yes, most were there "for fun" on their own expense) * duration: 3 days, 2 tracks * roughly 90 visitors * free catering in the coffee breaks and for lunch * rooms provided by the local university (quite a cost relief) * social event sponsored by a local (but not small) company * a few small sponsors * conference t-shirts and bags for free * in the end, we had a bit of money left over I guess you can go to quite some length if you have volunteers organizing things.
nextstep 15y ago
Sure, it would be great if these conferences cost less. It be nice it my rent were cheaper, too. But this author ignores the economic reason why these conferences ticket prices are so high: because they can be. WWDC and Google's I/O have no trouble selling out (both in under a day this year). So unless they are going to make these events much larger, there isn't going to be room for students and newbies anyway.
- libria 15y ago
  because they can be Because they have to be, due to simple supply/demand. I/O sold out in 20 minutes and some suspect that was even throttled. It's a shame, as the author says, because it tilts attendance in favor of either veterans with deep pockets, or employees of corporations. Good of Google to offer I/O to students at discounted rates; bad of them for not following through with filtering the attendance down to coders: http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google-io-2012-extended-to-three-days.html http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google-io-2012-extende...
robomartin 15y ago
Having participated in conferences in the US and Europe I can say that there are real cost structures to organizing a conference that just can't be avoided. I've done this at venues such as the LA Convention Center, Las Vegas Convention Center, MGM Grand Convention Center, RAI Convention Center (Amsterdam), ICM Munchen (Munich) and various hotels and smaller venues. In general terms I find the European venues and smaller American or European hotels far more pleasurable, simpler and cheaper to deal with. The unionized American venues are very expensive and can be a nightmare to deal with. Want coffee in a room for visitors? Sure. It'll be $200 for a gallon. Want a light turned off above a booth? No problem, it'll cost $350 for a union electrician to go to the breaker panel and quite-literally flip a switch. Need to bring some boxes on a dolly to a booth? Can't do it. Once you enter their domain union members need to handle even the most basic of jobs. In general terms, large venues are expensive, union or not. The union part just skews the cost curve because of how bloated and unreasonable things can become. Add to that insurance, guarantees and other fixed costs and you have a solid formula for high prices for attendees. And, if you are after a venue such as the LV Convention Center, well you'll have to sign a contract and pay a large chunk of money upfront a year ahead of your event. Then there's the issue that someone alluded to: What do you actually get out of conferences. There are some where you might just meet a person or learn about a technology that is a game changer for whatever it is you are doing. That's priceless and always worth the cost of admission. More often than not, at least in my experience, conferences are very disruptive and do more harm than good. Why? If you are an exhibitor very soon conferences become these artificial and unreasonable deadlines that almost require you to make announcements. This means that mad scrambles happen around them to get to that point. This can disrupt a company for weeks, both before and after a conference. As an attendee, you might also delay acting on purchases in order to see the above-mentioned announcements at the conference. The problem is that most conference announcements are vaporware --requiring months of additional work to be real products. By waiting for the next shiny thing you delay your process. And then, of course, there's the huge disruption of sending a whole team to a conference for three to five days --or even more if it requires traveling out of your country. For a large class of things I have personally found that the quality and depth of information available on the internet is significantly better than what you can get at a conference. I have avoided conferences for three years now, and, I must say, I have learned a lot more, been more productive and made better decisions because of it.
dustingetz 15y ago
warning, contrarian opinion: when i have questions about why something is, i try to examine people's incentives and doing this i've found I can usually figure things out. with this in mind, here's a speculative perspective to why dev conferences are expensive. why do speakers speak? The most attractive speakers are super busy with their projects, and they're the most visibly good at what they do so they're at the tip-top compensation. Speakers speak because it gets them visibility - it helps them recruit, it helps them network, it helps build their company brand. Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers. Altruism is a motivator, but I speculate, much less of one. If you're speaking at conferences "for the good of the people", you're probably not busy enough, and it will slow down as you become busy, unless it also provides something you need. so as a speaker grows his credibility, he tends to become less interested in the actual conference, perhaps a bit jaded even. Why do tickets cost much? Most tickets are expensable. The market for headliner speakers drives competitive comp. A first-class venue in vegas will draw a bigger crowd, even if its just people who want to party for a week. More tickets = bigger conference. This is why you go see Douglas Crawford speak to a room full of experienced developers and he gives some high-school level talk about "javascript the good parts". We get it man, the whole room owns your book. But we're all still at the conference, even if most of us don't realize that while we're wishing to learn something from the headliners, all we actually bought was a ticket to be in a room with them.
- adrianhoward 15y ago
  Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers. No actually. I don't. I speak at a fair number of conferences and I have had that experience a grand total of once.... and it felt very strange and "wrong". I remember several of us talking about how weird it was that we were isolated from the rest of the folk by the conference organisers (this was a French conference - maybe they generally do it differently there). Occasional a single speaker dinner maybe - but that's it.
kapowaz 15y ago
> The next conference of the day is Future of Web Design. I believe these tickets are well above £1000. She could have at least checked before making this nebulous claim; the most expensive ticket at FOWD London is £695+VAT, some way shy of ‘well above £1000’. It does somewhat undermine your argument if you pull numbers out of thin air…
jscheel 15y ago
I was considering a conference that will be happening next month. After researching it a bit more, I realized I would have been really ticked if I had actually gone. The conference was not expensive at all, but going to it would have meant a flight and hotel, as well as valuable time away from our startup. Looking at the info, I discovered two important things: 1. They still have not announced the topics, just the speakers, which makes me think that the talks will be ill-prepared at best. A good presentation takes time to hone. 2. They claim that the conference is two days, but in reality, the second day will occur at a different location still TBD (probably not near the first day's venue), and is just an open Barcamp for the attendees. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Barcamp. I've spoken at ours several times. The thing is, a good Barcamp is free. Like Amber, I am from Nashville. We can put on a good one and it doesn't cost attendees a lick. Maybe it's just our volunteer spirit, being the Volunteer state and all. I am still interested in the conference, but the time away from our startup, the cost of the flight and hotel, and the concerns I listed above make me want to avoid it like the plague.
mesh 15y ago
If you think the cost of a conference is too expensive, then don't go. If enough people think the same, the conference won't make money and will either lower their prices or lose money. Eventually the prices will come down. However, apparently, enough people put value into these conferences to justify conference organizers charging higher prices.
BrianLy 15y ago
> Moving on, even though I didn’t pay for my ticket since I was a speaker I've attended PyCon a few times and found the experience to be great value. I believe their speakers have to pay their own way just like other attendees. Other events that I've attended such as TechEd appear to be a bit of a "jolly" for speakers (MVPs) who are carted around to other events throughout the year.
bradt 15y ago
Excellent answer on Quora from Adam Trachtenberg about conference ticket price: http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so-expensive-to-attend http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so...
freshrap6 15y ago
I found and attended the ACCU conference in Oxford last year. I found it quite affordable at 695 GBP, and it was hands down the best conference I've been to. The speakers were great, the topics were interesting (programming languages, testing, developer processes, etc), the size of the conference was just right. The speakers were fun and knowledgeable, and had no qualms about joining the masses. In fact at one event the speakers and the masses were joined up in an networking activity. It was awesome. The wifi was flaky but is something I could deal with no problem. I've often wondered why there isn't a developer conference like this here in the states?
- puredanger 15y ago
  There are lots of conferences like that in the US. Strange Loop, Philadelphia ETE, Code Mash, OSCON, etc.
  - freshrap6 15y ago
    Is there an easy place to find out about these conferences and more like them?
    - puredanger 15y ago
      There's a guide of interesting US conferences that I like here: http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-conferences-2012/ http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-conferences-... and the search functionality in Lanyrd is pretty useful: http://lanyrd.com/search/ http://lanyrd.com/search/
      - freshrap6 15y ago
        Thanks!
100k 15y ago
I help run a free conference for about 1,000 people (MinneBar: http://minnestar.org/minnebar/ http://minnestar.org/minnebar/) that is paid for by sponsorship (and volunteer time - the organization is a non-profit with a low budget). It gives me sympathy for paid conference organizers. Conferences are expensive! We have breakfast, lunch, and a happy hour, pay no speakers, usually get venues donated, have no paid staff, and it still costs $40/person!
georgieporgie 15y ago
I've been to two conferences in my life. One was, I think, a Bluetooth conference back in 2001 or so. I learned nothing. The other was a Flash conference in 2004ish. I learned nothing and was appalled at the low quality of presentations (one 'rockstar' developer spent several minutes showing us Homestar Runner while he flexed his guns at the podium - weird). I guess the point of conferences is really just the networking. But I never really got the idea of wanting to network with a bunch of other people who also don't know what they're doing. I just don't see conferences being aligned with developers' interests at all (unless, of course, you're a speaker). Training sessions? Yeah. Conferences? No. Send the sales team or CEO instead.
RedwoodCity 15y ago
Most people don't pay the full ticket price. At many conferences it is an incentive to register early, so the organizers can be better prepared.
tlrobinson 15y ago
I prefer cheaper conferences because the attendees tend to pay for their own tickets, rather than being sent by their company, resulting in a more passionate group of people.
dudus 15y ago
You can call me sexist, and I probably deserve it. But I read the whole post and my interest just grew from line to line. Until I got to the end and saw that the poster was not only a girl, but a hot girl. Than the whole picture changed in my mind and now I see this just as one girl being pissed off about people not giving her the attention she thinks she deserves. Before I noticed it was a hot girl I had this image of a nerd web developer and I would totally agree with him. But now all I see is drama. I feel bad for my pre-concept, but there's nothing I can do.
- OoTheNigerian 15y ago
  I have gone through her site, and she is as competent as they come design wise. So her only crime is not looking like a stereotype you have in mind? I feel bad for my pre-concept, but there's nothing I can do. You need help and there is something you can do, seek it. It is obvious why you are anonymous.
- sbisker 15y ago
  Huh? One of her gripes is that she says the speakers are bad, including herself. She says all this about a conference she spoke at, putting both her reputation and the conferences reputation at risk to help bring more strength to her argument. I'd say yeah, you're seeing drama where you want to see drama.
- smacktoward 15y ago
  Because "nerd web developer" and "attractive woman" are always mutually exclusive.
flotblot 14y ago
The problem is not overpriced conferences. The problems are that employers don't want to shell out $2000/year because it seems like a hefty pricetag, conferences are just of often as not not well-enough organized and operated, and sponsors put off more people than they sell to when they do the hard sell. The ways to fix that are: 1. conferences should instead do a subscription model where you join up for $2000/year and you go to as many conferences as you want (but you have to pay the hotel fee + maybe another $100 or so to keep the riffraff out), 2. if conferences happened more often, the kinks would be worked out, 3. sponsors: give away product and then stay the hell out of it- you'll get the exposure x 10.
mkramlich 14y ago
Attend a local Meetup-like meetup. Free or close to it. Be passive audience or speak or network. No hotel, airfare, rental car worries or costs. No union shenanigans. Eat at home or bring own snack, though many Meetup meetups have free food & drink by sponsors. No boredom or "well I paid for ticket" guilt. Come and go as you like, when you like, minimal structure but still get to meet other people with same technical interests. Lame speakers? Leave -- you didn't pay anything anyway. Granted, you do need enough people in your local area to reach that critical threshold. But don't ignore cheaper, easier, more flexible alternatives.
iuguy 14y ago
I see where the author is coming from. Playing devils advocate as someone who runs a reasonable sized event in London[1] I can tell everyone ere that the single biggest expense is the venue itself, closely followed by all the little bits on top (such as catering etc.). Having said that, £799 for a single track two day conf is a bit steep (for a comparison 44con's two day ticket[2] is £300, fully catered). The biggest bugbear I have is poor speaker ops. Speakers need to be taken care of, if you don't then you'll struggle to attract quality and end up with a depressive spiral. It seems this conference failed. The interesting point for me was Sencha. I wonder if thy had Sencha sponsored slots? We don't do this, especially as people pay to attend. The point about travel expenses is unforgivable. We cover our speakers flights and accommodation so they're not out of pocket. At the very least it shouldn't cost the speaker a fortune to attend. [1] -http://44con.com http://44con.com [2] -http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk

189 points by duggan 15y ago

Overpriced conferences are a great opportunity for local user groups. I'm a member of one and we often invite one of the local conference speakers to do a free, less formal talk after the first one. Honestly, I believe that a conference ticket should only cover a venue and speakers travel cost. Even with this days economy it's not hard to find a sponsor and with ticket price around 100-200 euro it's certainly possible to provide great experience AND free beer.

petercooper 15y ago
They can be an opportunity in other ways too. Some conference organizers are keen to engage with local user groups and can go out of their way to offer space for an on-site meetup or similar things and offer cut price tickets or even free entry. O'Reilly is a good example of this. They let a free side event take place at RailsConf for a couple of years and you could get right into the conference and mingle with all the RailsConf attendees for free! The only thing you couldn't do was go into the talks (and, yes, they had people checking on the doors.) I think O'Reilly also does "expo hall" passes for certain conferences for $25 or something.. it's almost like getting the best part (hallway track!) for free :-)

kayoone 15y ago

These overpriced tickets mostly come from the fact that companies/agencies send their employees there, book it as an expense and dont think about it. If every attendee had to pay this with his own private cash, i am sure the average ticket price would be much lower.

TomGullen 15y ago

I'd love to attend more conferences but as the author says it's too expensive to justify the cost in a majority of cases. I did always wonder why they are so expensive. Are they the big cash cows we assume them to be? Or are they far more expensive to run than we think them to be?

smiler 15y ago
Have you seen how much hotels, conference centres charge for venue, beverages etc :)
- estel 15y ago
  Yes, but I've also seen how cheaply a number of other conferences/events are able to run in the same or comparable venues.
  - adrianhoward 15y ago
    Can you give some examples please? If there are people out there who can run large conferences cheaply I'd love to go look and figure out how :-)
- morgo 15y ago
  Don't forget wifi :) I wish conferences offered two rates: one for just the talks, and one for talks + (coffee,wifi,lunch).
  - dagw 15y ago
    I was at a conference that did that. The end result was that there was no way to prevent people who hadn't paid for lunch and coffee from just walking up to the buffet table and taking lunch and coffee, and the food being gone before everybody who had paid for lunch had eaten.

robotmay 15y ago

I was incredibly excited when I found out Euruko is only £65; every other Ruby conference is extortionate. I don't care about fancy venues or freebies; I want to meet other people and learn something new. Most of these conferences are pricing out the people who actually want to learn, and instead mostly just filling their seats with people who know it already.

Argorak 15y ago
Most EuRuKo venues since it started moving were actually fancy :). I still remember the days when they were hard pressed to find locations in germany that gave a cheap room with a projector to 20 rubyists :/. I think the model of moving the conference through europe also ensures that there is a healthy competition between the user groups. But there are other great conferences at a similar price point in the ruby world, for example Ruby Lugdunum: http://rulu.eu/ http://rulu.eu/ .
- robotmay 15y ago
  Ooh, I hadn't seen that one - sorely tempted to go to France for that now :D
  - Argorak 15y ago
    Sorry for replying again, but I saw it too late: Eurucamp (the event that was quickly organized for everyone that didn't get a ticket for EuRuKo 2011) will be continued. I would be surprised if the ticket price would be above the price of EuRuKo. http://2012.eurucamp.org/ http://2012.eurucamp.org/
- decode 15y ago
  > a cheap room with a beamer A tip for you, and maybe other German speakers here: "beamer" is one of those German words that seems like English, but it's not (like handy). In English, the word is "projector", whether it's analog or digital.
  - 15y ago

ticks 15y ago

Having attended several conferences and paid for the tickets, I can only conclude that they aren't worth the price. It's a good excuse if you want to travel far or if your employer is paying though. Those that benefit most are the speakers, often well paid, free travel and accommodation, other freebies, usually a VIP event beforehand, they pimp their book for little effort, are often employed to do so, repeat same talk at other venues etc.

raganwald 15y ago
Please post a list of conferences where the speakers are well paid, I'd like to get on that gravy train ;-) So far, the conferences where I've spoken have done no kore than take care of travel and accomodation. CUSEC, which is a tremendously valuable conference for attendees, did give me a USB stick in the form of a lego block, I will cherish that long after people have forgotten USB technology. Anyhow, I'm not arguing with travel and accomodation, but as a Dad it can be lonely leaving my family even if it's a real pleasure to meet people at a conference. I personally find speaking to be a net financial loss by a large margin, at the end of the day I'd make much more money staying at home and consulting by the hour. Other speakers' mileage may vary :-)
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/ http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non... This conference listed that they paid each speaker $2000, plus travel and hotel. I understand the dilemma they're trying to avoid. By paying this rate, they're trying to ensure professional speakers of presumably high quality. They contrast this with other options: "Should all conferences be a single day long and only feature unpaid and inexperienced speakers? Should they all take place in second tier cities in low cost venues and force attendees to bring a packed lunch? Or should they be scrapped altogether, in favour of paid for content on a tutorial site..." There's definitely room for middle ground in there. Personally, "second tier" cities are probably better choices for many people, due to lower costs, but why mention "packed lunch"? You can certainly have great food provided in 'second tier' cities, and at a lower cost to boot compared to 'first tier' cities. Paying $2k for each speaker is certainly a nice gesture to the speakers, but they're setting up some extreme options here (basically spending $5k+ per speaker, vs nothing). Best value for all parties will probably be in between those extremes in most cases.

jrmg 15y ago

I think it's important to separate the question of whether _this_ conference was badly run, and too expensive, from whether all conferences are. This conference sounds like it was terrible. A well run conference, though, costs a lot more to stage than you might expect. Andy Budd wrote an illuminating article on the subject last year: http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/ http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non...

k33l0r 15y ago
I complete agree. We're a small Ruby consultancy and we run a relatively small Ruby/Ruby on Rails conference in Helsinki[1] and before we organised it for the first time we basically had no idea how much everything would cost. Expect to be overcharged for everything ranging from coffee, to having power outlets available, to having tables for registration. You can expect a cup of coffee at your venue (any venue) to cost the same or more than it would in a good coffee shop (but it won't be anywhere as near as good). Lunch will probably cost two times more than it would in a decent restaurant nearby (but good luck finding a restaurant that can cater to 200-300 people at once). Oh, and most venues have terms which prohibit you from using an outside caterer and thus you're stuck with the venue's own catering, no matter what it costs. In terms of compensation for speakers, we do our best to help them out, but the economics of running a small conference means that we can't afford to pay everyone's travel expenses (never mind paying them a non-insulting speaker's fee). I wrote a blog post partially related to this about a year ago: http://blog.kiskolabs.com/post/5661615036/controversy http://blog.kiskolabs.com/post/5661615036/controversy In terms of making money, we'd be much better off just concentrating on our core business, but then it's likely that Finland wouldn't have any Ruby conference at all. We'd love to be able to drop our prices to the sub 100€ level, but frankly that's not possible, not even with the great sponsors that we've been lucky to have in the past years. To help with the "high" ticket prices, we offer discounts to full time students and discounts at a few levels to people who have contributed to Ruby on Rails. In fact, if you have enough contributions to Rails, we'll give you a free ticket. [1]: http://frozenrails.eu http://frozenrails.eu
- kd0amg 15y ago

Apreche 15y ago

The other problem with these conferences is their size. Most of them are very small. If you only have a few hundred people, the cost of the venue and such isn't divided by a large enough number. This is because these developer conferences are often so specific in their subject matter that the audience is small, and also because of the high price. I would like to see a convention, not a conference, that is for programmers, period. It should be gigantic like the big geek conventions PAX, Comic-Con, etc. Price could be $50 for three days. Thousands of us would be there. Lots of money to be made selling space to exhibitors. I would go every year.

reustle 15y ago
Let's make it happen. We can use the Javits Center in NYC.
- ghurlman 15y ago
  Javits may be a lot of things, but it's definitely not a place to hold a conference/convention if you're trying to keep costs down.
- Apreche 15y ago
  Javits is indeed awful. The Baltimore Convention Center is actually the best building, but Baltimore itself is awful.
- yo-mf 15y ago
  If I had my choice of hosting a conference in the Javits Center, a Supermax prison, or Kabul, I might be tempted to choose the later two options...
petercooper 15y ago
With some extra space for lightning talks and self organized discussions/BoFs, perhaps. I actually think that would work. I would go too, if only to experience the diversity. I hate it when events get too insular.
huxley 15y ago

keva161 15y ago

I went to a conference a few weeks back that was £300 a ticket. Factoring in accommodation + travel. The cost was well over £500. Was it worth it? Not really. The talks were put on YouTube and the 'goody' bags weren't that great. Some of the speakers were ok but I guess I would of rather put that money elsewhere. It wont stop me from attending conferences but lesson learnt.

daleharvey 15y ago

Ignoring the details of this particular conference, I think its mostly wrong to say 'conferences should be priced to cover X' There are conferences that go all the way from free to > $5000, I am constantly hearing about the amazing experiences at certain very expensive small conferences, as well as people enjoying the cheaper events (I recently helped out organising a conference that charged £50 full price). Obviously we dont want anyone to be ripped off, but generally if you have an expensive conference the organisers and the speakers have to justify that cost, and if they do so great. We also dont want to alienate new people from attending conferences, but as long as their continue to be free meetups and cheaper conferences as an alternative, I dont see the problem

mgkimsal 15y ago

I've run a conference for freelance web devs 2 years in a row, both times at a loss (though the loss is shrinking each year) but have tried to keep the ticket prices down, but also try to cover some expenses for speakers (hotel or travel for speakers from out of the area, primarily). Tried to keep tickets at a max of $99 the first year. Bumped up to $149 second year (with cheaper 'early bird' tickets both years). Bigger issue was trying to get sponsors to help defray costs. Given the nature of our conference - freelance web professionals (devs, designers, etc) - surprisingly a lot of companies weren't interested because we weren't 'targeted' enough. I may have just been getting polite brush offs, but I'd contacted 45 companies - many of whom sponsor other tech conferences - and had 3 sponsors the first year. A few only want to send a speaker and schwag, but no money. Conference venues and catering staff don't like to be paid in bobbleheads and cup holders, unfortunately. A note on schwag - I basically hate it. I think it's wasteful, and going to conferences where I've paid hundreds of dollars, then given a bag with a bunch of plastic crap made in and shipped from China just gets my goat. So we don't do 'bags of crap' at my conference. I don't think too many people have missed it so far. gentle plug - http://indieconf.com http://indieconf.com is setting dates for this fall in North Carolina. I remember inviting Amber to come speak at our first conference two years ago, but the timing didn't work out - perhaps we can get her to come this year. :)

darkstar999 15y ago
Can you elaborate on the costs? Why do you need catering? Thanks for eliminating the "schwag" waste. I also hate that crap.
- huxley 15y ago
  Often it's a requirement if you have your event in a hotel. The hotel will sometimes have restrictions on who you can use to cater for breaks or lunches. People expect coffee or drinks during breaks and will complain loudly regardless of the registration fee. $7-10 per person for a coffee break is not uncommon.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago

gouranga 15y ago

Having not been to a conference for 10 years, is there anything I'm missing. I gave up after seeing no value and crappy hotels too often.

kelvin0 15y ago

Clicking on the link to this articles freezes systematically my Firefox!

ScottWhigham 15y ago

While I'm not a "fan of expensive conferences" per se, I thought this was a bunch of junk. FTA: "I’m a huge proponent against expensive conferences, as I feel that the point of these conferences in the first place is to get the community together to learn and meet each other." As The Dude once famously said, "Well, that's just like, your opinion, man." I don't think that at all; I think a conference that I pay for should be a learning experience. I think that, for $1000 or $2000 that I should be able to get vicarious experiences from attending the sessions/demos/labs that I would either (a) not have been able to receive elsewhere, or (b) not been exposed to. It should replace my time at a training class, for example, except that it should be broader experiences. Networking is fine but dude - you simply have it wrong if that's what you think programming conferences are all about. And you have it wrong if you think that tech conference attendance fees are paid for by the individual programmers/devs who attend. Oh sure, there are some folks who pay for these huge costs out of their own pocket but, by and large, this is a "job perk" or a "job training" event that is, thus, paid for by their company. Sorry but, for most companies, there is no "networking" budget for the programmers/devs.

jperras 15y ago

As a frequent conference attendee and speaker, a lot of the points that this post enumerates resonate with me. Our profession seems to have a love affair with conferences, and it's been getting worse year after year. I believe a large part of the problem is that many conferences are priced with the idea that the fee will be covered by corporations that pay for their employees to attend, as opposed to being covered by an individual. Businesses have an easier time justifying a $1000 conference ticket (especially if they're able to recruit or scout out new potential hires at said conference) than an independent consultant. But, conferences don't need to be quite so expensive. Conference organizers just need to reorganize their priorities. The best conferences I've ever attended (and paid for out of my own pocket) had less than two hundred attendees, were not held in a hotel, and had an incredible focus on the local community. The best example of this: http://brooklynbeta.org/2011 http://brooklynbeta.org/2011. Total cost for the conference was $100, and an additional $100 for the (optional) special event held the day before the conference, both of which included food, coffee, sponsored after-parties, more beer than we could finish, and the list of attendees and speakers was the best that I had ever seen. People need to start voting with their wallets a bit more. Stop going to conferences that suck. [Disclaimer: I now work for the organization that runs Brooklyn Beta, but did not work for them when I attended the conference in 2010 and 2011]

mechanical_fish 15y ago
Step one: Decide that spending a few thousand dollars per year on conferences is excessive. Step two: Discover that if you lived in Brooklyn there would be a critical mass of colleagues living right there in town with you, such that you could put on an awesome local conference for one or two hundred dollars per person. Step three: Move to Brooklyn, at a cost of an additional N hundred dollars per person per month, regardless of whether that month includes an awesome local conference. Step four: ????? Step five: Profit! (Mind you, I completely agree with your strategy, which is why I live near Boston. I could tease myself just as I'm teasing you. ;) But I don't try to pretend that the strategy is designed to save money. Living in proximity to a number of excellent local conferences and meetups is very expensive - though, of course, you also get the awesome local restaurants and shops and museums and university libraries.)

jonheller 15y ago

I kind of agree. I've attended two conferences for the past few years: Pubcon and An Event Apart. Pubcon was priced at $699, and included three full days of sessions, with 5 different tracks. I learned a lot there, and felt it justified the price. An Event Apart was $899 the first year I registered, I believe, and this year is $1045. I work for a small company that pays these expenses, but I couldn't even justify asking for that this year. I know that I am paying to see some of the "biggest names" in the industry. Several of these people are excellent and entertaining, and I don't doubt their knowledge in the field -- Dan Cederholm and Jared Spool specifically. But do I really need to pay over $1000 to hear from the "biggest names"? I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes, Eric Meyer is a genius at CSS, but how do I somehow explain the ROI of using slightly more optimized CSS? Or one year AEA had a speaker who spent almos the whole hour somehow relating fashion magazines to web development. Ugh. I guess what irks me is feeling like I'm paying extra for the celebrity status of some of these speakers, when in reality, I'd most likely learn just as much _useful_ knowledge at a Wordcamp or one of the multitude of sub $200 conferences.

andrewmcdonough 15y ago

As a response to this problem, a few London-based ruby developers set up a no-frills ruby conference called "Ruby Manor". Talks were chosen democratically from the community, and were of a very high quality. They have had three so far, for, each for under £15 for a day, and they had enough money left over at the end of the day to buy us all a few beers. I think more than anything, they wanted to prove that you could have a great conference without charging large amounts of money: http://rubymanor.org/ http://rubymanor.org/

Su-Shee 15y ago

I'm seeing the same thing in Berlin these days - tech conferences of all kinds, usally 2 days, tickets ranging from 300,- euros up to 1200,- euros. Even if employers would send their developers to one of those two or three times a year - how many developers from different countries can even afford those prices? Half of europe simply isn't that rich and doesn't pay nowhere near that high salaries. On top of the two-days event you'd have to add hostel/hotel and travel (train or flight) - even with my (in comparison) rather high german salary I think twice if I really want to pay several hundred euros for an event of two days. And conferences don't have to take place in hotels, there's all kinds of venues - some hotter, some less so - one could meet with 50, 100, 500 or 1000 people. Some developer conferences simply take place in rooms of the local university for example. (Usally a not so hot location, ok..) I would really like to see that developer's conferences stay (really) affordable for _all_ of the intended audience.

deleted 15y ago

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vetler 15y ago

JavaZone in Oslo, Norway costs 1033 USD (or 5950 NOK) - a lot of money, and inflated by low dollar and high krone. Although I don't have any statistics, I believe few individuals pay this themselves - most participants get their company to pay for it. It's a great conference. Two days, seven (7) tracks. Food included, and lots of it. At the end of the first day there's ClubZone, which includes free beer. Is it overpriced? Perhaps. It could probably be done cheaper. The money seems to be going to make a great conference, though, and as long as most people don't pay for it themselves, I don't think it's a big problem. It's really the place you want to be if you live in Norway, so perhaps it is a bit unfortunate that it isn't more accessible to people who can't get their company to pay for it. Great conference, highly recommended. Many, if not most talks are in english. Unfortunately, the website seems to be broken at the moment: http://javazone.no http://javazone.no Videos from last year: http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011 http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011

nadam 15y ago

I've never attended any conferences in my life (and I have been programming for 25 years (16 years professionally)). I can buy books, read online, watch videos online on more programming topics than I have time/capacity for. My tolearn.txt is quite long all the time. For networking among programmers there are more than enough online communities. Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell? I am not saying that conferences are not useful, just I did not find the motivation yet to attend one.

mgkimsal 15y ago
"Business networking would be very useful (basically meeting people who need my knowledge/expertise and learning about business opportunities), but how can I do that among people who want to sell the same thing that I want to sell?" Umm.... it's generally not about selling right there and then, but making connections which may turn in to relationships. I've been to conferences and have made a great network of people I wouldn't have met otherwise, and some of it has led to projects/work months or years after our initial meeting. Most of the conferences I go to now are almost always just for hallway networking and socializing. 20 years ago, I used to wonder "how does someone run a business? how can you compete? it's a closed network - just friends of friends, etc". That's not 100% true, but it's more true than many people would want to admit. However, it's not all that hard to 'break in to' some circles and become part of a network. It does take time and commitment.
diminish 15y ago
Maybe it is time for virtual conferences, no Google Hangout for example?
raganwald 15y ago
"We're not computers, Sebastian, we're physical.”—Roy Batty

talmand 15y ago

My problems do not just include the ticket, here in the U.S. there seems to be a desire to have conferences in the most expensive cities possible. New York, Boston, LA, SF, etc. It seems as if there's this bubble filter that makes these people think developers are only in these locations. Please note, developers are everywhere, think about it. Often times the airfare and hotel equal or go beyond the costs of the conference ticket. Therefore I don't go to a lot of conferences, it's just too hard to justify them. At this point I'm more apt to look for more training-like gatherings where the speaker will discuss actual code instead of just talking about whatever random subjects. A speaker describing his favorite topic fits fine for local meetups and the like, I once spoke on a one of my pet peeves to a local meetup and it was great. I suggest that people look for more of that type of thing these days.

excuse-me 15y ago
It can be cheaper for people to get to these cities and get accomodation - as well as the millions that live nearby. I did a conference at the Anaheim convention center (=Disneyland). Flights to LAX were $200, there was a $10 shuttle from the airport and a line of $50 motels. Then I had to go to Pittsburgh, sounds like a cheap place. But flights were $1000 with a lot less choice (who wants to got to Pittsburgh?). There were only a couple of hotels near the convention center and they were $200/night. Las Vegas is one of the cheapest places in the US to get to and stay at, that's why it's so popular for conferences. Similarly for Amsterdam in Europe.
- gte910h 14y ago
  There are several cities that aren't really expensive that have tons of cheap conference space, see, Atlanta.
carols10cents 14y ago
That's an advantage that we at Steel City Ruby Conf are actively promoting-- we're targeting Ruby devs who haven't been to conferences before and hoping that the cheaper accommodations and costs in Pittsburgh help.

adrianhoward 15y ago

It sounds like the conference Amber went to was a bad conference. They exist. Both expensive and non-expensive ones :-) A few thoughts... 1) Price != Value Just like everything else in life the price tag is not the way to judge a conference. It's the value received. Some free conferences will be worth £1000 to somebody. Some £1000 conferences will be worth nothing to somebody else. Some expensive conferences will suck universally. Some free events will too. If you want to know what a conference will be like - go look at previous years. Go look at the speakers. Go talk to people who have attended. Figure out if it's the right conference for you. For example, I was scheduled in as a speaker at last year's Agile 2011 conference. As a speaker it would have cost me about £6k to attend once you take travel from the UK, hotel & lost work hours into account. That's money out of my pocket - I run my own business. I couldn't attend at the last minute due to family illness. Judging by previous years not attending has lost me money. Agile 2011 is worth more that £6k to me and my business. To somebody in a different business, or with different skills - probably not. Another way to think about what conferences provide - ask yourself what your day rate is? How many working days of value are you expecting to get from the conference? 2) Experts need events too Yes there have to be events with a broad appeal for "high schoolers, college students and newbies to our industry". But there also needs to be events for "people who already know everything you’d need to know about the presented topics". The latter might not enjoy the former's events. The former may not enjoy the latter's events. Finding a balance that will attract and entertain both groups is really fricking hard. 3) Cost of large events I've been involved several times with organising conferences both small (e.g. BarCamp Bournemouth - 2days, 75ish people, free) and large (Agile 2010 with 1400ish people, five days, $1-2k & Agile 2012 - probably about the same). Anybody who thinks large conferences are massive money spinners has never been involved with organising a large conference :-) Large conferences are not usually cheaper to organise because of economies of scale. Quite the opposite if anything. For example take the venue. For small conferences you can often cadge a venue with some sponsorship, or find a small one in a slack period running cheap. You're flexible because you can change location on very short notice and there are usually multiple venues in a town or city that can support you. For large conferences there are few venues that can support you. Those venues' business is based around extracting every last penny from large events - and they're very good at it. They need to be booked months, sometimes more than a year, in advance. Which brings in a whole set of different organisational and cash-flow issues... They often require a guaranteed minimum income from the floorspace, which gives you much less flexibility of resizing and scheduling. Short version - it's really freaking hard. Then there's insurance. Speaker compensation. Programme selection. Managing submissions (if you have an open submission process) and/or finding speakers. The folk needed for security, health & safety, catering, etc. Food. Wifi. Transactional fees. Power. AV. Publicity. Etc.

ColinWright 15y ago

Some actual figures: For the last two years I have run the MathsJam conference, and I'll be doing so again this year. Last year the fee covered lunch Saturday, dinner, accommodation, breakfast, lunch Sunday, all tea, coffee and biscuits, and all sessions. No bag, paper, pen, coasters, pins, or other swag. Nada. You want it, you bring it. We didn't pay the speakers, and last year we had 60 lightning talks of 5 minutes each. Fantastic atmosphere of 120 enthusiastic people who love their subject and wanted to share stuff. 10% discount early bird, 10% discount for the unwaged. Full price: ukp165 (which is about usd200). That covered expenses with basically no head room. Note that accommodation was included, as was a ferry from the local train station.

roqetman 15y ago

Maybe more "gatherings" and less conferences are the way to go (invite a speaker once you have an interested group) - kind of like the way these BSD guys in NYC do it: http://www.nycbug.org/ http://www.nycbug.org/

digitalclubb 15y ago

I love how everyone screams about the 'open' web and yet these conference tickets are priced so highly. I think conferences are a fantastic idea.. you meet like-minded individuals and hear from really passionate presenters but the prices are crazy and thus I have only ever been to 1. I understand how there are certain costs to be factored in like venue and speakers costs but come on, there must be something that can be done so developers from all backgrounds can take part in such events.

petercooper 15y ago

This could be called "Overpriced [anything]." It seems someone went to a conference they thought didn't offer value for money. Sad, but it happens. People pay $200/hr for developers who don't get the job done, too, but that shouldn't diminish other developers who charge $200/hr and provide good value. So it goes with conferences. A TED ticket costs thousands of dollars, for instance, but people seem to enjoy going. The people who claim conferences should "only" charge enough to cover their costs, though, strike me as weird. That's like saying developers should only earn enough to cover their living expenses or that all software should be free. Sure, some conferences have altruistic motivations, but some are run by businesses who work hard at it and, well, deserve to make a profit.

perlgeek 15y ago

It seems this was a conference organized for profit, so the high price tag doesn't seem very surprising. I have been both at for-profit and "grass roots" conferences, and I like the latter much better. I have also helped organize a conference (German Perl Workshop 2012), here are some key facts: * price: 75€ regular fee, 50€ for speakers, 250€ for people sent by companies (yes, most were there "for fun" on their own expense) * duration: 3 days, 2 tracks * roughly 90 visitors * free catering in the coffee breaks and for lunch * rooms provided by the local university (quite a cost relief) * social event sponsored by a local (but not small) company * a few small sponsors * conference t-shirts and bags for free * in the end, we had a bit of money left over I guess you can go to quite some length if you have volunteers organizing things.

nextstep 15y ago

Sure, it would be great if these conferences cost less. It be nice it my rent were cheaper, too. But this author ignores the economic reason why these conferences ticket prices are so high: because they can be. WWDC and Google's I/O have no trouble selling out (both in under a day this year). So unless they are going to make these events much larger, there isn't going to be room for students and newbies anyway.

libria 15y ago
because they can be Because they have to be, due to simple supply/demand. I/O sold out in 20 minutes and some suspect that was even throttled. It's a shame, as the author says, because it tilts attendance in favor of either veterans with deep pockets, or employees of corporations. Good of Google to offer I/O to students at discounted rates; bad of them for not following through with filtering the attendance down to coders: http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google-io-2012-extended-to-three-days.html http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google-io-2012-extende...

robomartin 15y ago

Having participated in conferences in the US and Europe I can say that there are real cost structures to organizing a conference that just can't be avoided. I've done this at venues such as the LA Convention Center, Las Vegas Convention Center, MGM Grand Convention Center, RAI Convention Center (Amsterdam), ICM Munchen (Munich) and various hotels and smaller venues. In general terms I find the European venues and smaller American or European hotels far more pleasurable, simpler and cheaper to deal with. The unionized American venues are very expensive and can be a nightmare to deal with. Want coffee in a room for visitors? Sure. It'll be $200 for a gallon. Want a light turned off above a booth? No problem, it'll cost $350 for a union electrician to go to the breaker panel and quite-literally flip a switch. Need to bring some boxes on a dolly to a booth? Can't do it. Once you enter their domain union members need to handle even the most basic of jobs. In general terms, large venues are expensive, union or not. The union part just skews the cost curve because of how bloated and unreasonable things can become. Add to that insurance, guarantees and other fixed costs and you have a solid formula for high prices for attendees. And, if you are after a venue such as the LV Convention Center, well you'll have to sign a contract and pay a large chunk of money upfront a year ahead of your event. Then there's the issue that someone alluded to: What do you actually get out of conferences. There are some where you might just meet a person or learn about a technology that is a game changer for whatever it is you are doing. That's priceless and always worth the cost of admission. More often than not, at least in my experience, conferences are very disruptive and do more harm than good. Why? If you are an exhibitor very soon conferences become these artificial and unreasonable deadlines that almost require you to make announcements. This means that mad scrambles happen around them to get to that point. This can disrupt a company for weeks, both before and after a conference. As an attendee, you might also delay acting on purchases in order to see the above-mentioned announcements at the conference. The problem is that most conference announcements are vaporware --requiring months of additional work to be real products. By waiting for the next shiny thing you delay your process. And then, of course, there's the huge disruption of sending a whole team to a conference for three to five days --or even more if it requires traveling out of your country. For a large class of things I have personally found that the quality and depth of information available on the internet is significantly better than what you can get at a conference. I have avoided conferences for three years now, and, I must say, I have learned a lot more, been more productive and made better decisions because of it.

dustingetz 15y ago

warning, contrarian opinion: when i have questions about why something is, i try to examine people's incentives and doing this i've found I can usually figure things out. with this in mind, here's a speculative perspective to why dev conferences are expensive. why do speakers speak? The most attractive speakers are super busy with their projects, and they're the most visibly good at what they do so they're at the tip-top compensation. Speakers speak because it gets them visibility - it helps them recruit, it helps them network, it helps build their company brand. Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers. Altruism is a motivator, but I speculate, much less of one. If you're speaking at conferences "for the good of the people", you're probably not busy enough, and it will slow down as you become busy, unless it also provides something you need. so as a speaker grows his credibility, he tends to become less interested in the actual conference, perhaps a bit jaded even. Why do tickets cost much? Most tickets are expensable. The market for headliner speakers drives competitive comp. A first-class venue in vegas will draw a bigger crowd, even if its just people who want to party for a week. More tickets = bigger conference. This is why you go see Douglas Crawford speak to a room full of experienced developers and he gives some high-school level talk about "javascript the good parts". We get it man, the whole room owns your book. But we're all still at the conference, even if most of us don't realize that while we're wishing to learn something from the headliners, all we actually bought was a ticket to be in a room with them.

adrianhoward 15y ago
Ever notice how the speakers always have private speaker-only lunch rooms, and speaker-only bar events? Its because the speakers have less interest in networking with the masses. Being a speaker is a decent signal for being among the highest value people in the room. the speakers want to network with other speakers. No actually. I don't. I speak at a fair number of conferences and I have had that experience a grand total of once.... and it felt very strange and "wrong". I remember several of us talking about how weird it was that we were isolated from the rest of the folk by the conference organisers (this was a French conference - maybe they generally do it differently there). Occasional a single speaker dinner maybe - but that's it.

kapowaz 15y ago

> The next conference of the day is Future of Web Design. I believe these tickets are well above £1000. She could have at least checked before making this nebulous claim; the most expensive ticket at FOWD London is £695+VAT, some way shy of ‘well above £1000’. It does somewhat undermine your argument if you pull numbers out of thin air…

jscheel 15y ago

I was considering a conference that will be happening next month. After researching it a bit more, I realized I would have been really ticked if I had actually gone. The conference was not expensive at all, but going to it would have meant a flight and hotel, as well as valuable time away from our startup. Looking at the info, I discovered two important things: 1. They still have not announced the topics, just the speakers, which makes me think that the talks will be ill-prepared at best. A good presentation takes time to hone. 2. They claim that the conference is two days, but in reality, the second day will occur at a different location still TBD (probably not near the first day's venue), and is just an open Barcamp for the attendees. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Barcamp. I've spoken at ours several times. The thing is, a good Barcamp is free. Like Amber, I am from Nashville. We can put on a good one and it doesn't cost attendees a lick. Maybe it's just our volunteer spirit, being the Volunteer state and all. I am still interested in the conference, but the time away from our startup, the cost of the flight and hotel, and the concerns I listed above make me want to avoid it like the plague.

mesh 15y ago

If you think the cost of a conference is too expensive, then don't go. If enough people think the same, the conference won't make money and will either lower their prices or lose money. Eventually the prices will come down. However, apparently, enough people put value into these conferences to justify conference organizers charging higher prices.

BrianLy 15y ago

> Moving on, even though I didn’t pay for my ticket since I was a speaker I've attended PyCon a few times and found the experience to be great value. I believe their speakers have to pay their own way just like other attendees. Other events that I've attended such as TechEd appear to be a bit of a "jolly" for speakers (MVPs) who are carted around to other events throughout the year.

bradt 15y ago

Excellent answer on Quora from Adam Trachtenberg about conference ticket price: http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so-expensive-to-attend http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so...

freshrap6 15y ago

I found and attended the ACCU conference in Oxford last year. I found it quite affordable at 695 GBP, and it was hands down the best conference I've been to. The speakers were great, the topics were interesting (programming languages, testing, developer processes, etc), the size of the conference was just right. The speakers were fun and knowledgeable, and had no qualms about joining the masses. In fact at one event the speakers and the masses were joined up in an networking activity. It was awesome. The wifi was flaky but is something I could deal with no problem. I've often wondered why there isn't a developer conference like this here in the states?

puredanger 15y ago
There are lots of conferences like that in the US. Strange Loop, Philadelphia ETE, Code Mash, OSCON, etc.
- freshrap6 15y ago
  Is there an easy place to find out about these conferences and more like them?
  - puredanger 15y ago
    There's a guide of interesting US conferences that I like here: http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-conferences-2012/ http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-conferences-... and the search functionality in Lanyrd is pretty useful: http://lanyrd.com/search/ http://lanyrd.com/search/
    - freshrap6 15y ago
      Thanks!

100k 15y ago

I help run a free conference for about 1,000 people (MinneBar: http://minnestar.org/minnebar/ http://minnestar.org/minnebar/) that is paid for by sponsorship (and volunteer time - the organization is a non-profit with a low budget). It gives me sympathy for paid conference organizers. Conferences are expensive! We have breakfast, lunch, and a happy hour, pay no speakers, usually get venues donated, have no paid staff, and it still costs $40/person!

georgieporgie 15y ago

I've been to two conferences in my life. One was, I think, a Bluetooth conference back in 2001 or so. I learned nothing. The other was a Flash conference in 2004ish. I learned nothing and was appalled at the low quality of presentations (one 'rockstar' developer spent several minutes showing us Homestar Runner while he flexed his guns at the podium - weird). I guess the point of conferences is really just the networking. But I never really got the idea of wanting to network with a bunch of other people who also don't know what they're doing. I just don't see conferences being aligned with developers' interests at all (unless, of course, you're a speaker). Training sessions? Yeah. Conferences? No. Send the sales team or CEO instead.

RedwoodCity 15y ago

Most people don't pay the full ticket price. At many conferences it is an incentive to register early, so the organizers can be better prepared.

tlrobinson 15y ago

I prefer cheaper conferences because the attendees tend to pay for their own tickets, rather than being sent by their company, resulting in a more passionate group of people.

dudus 15y ago

You can call me sexist, and I probably deserve it. But I read the whole post and my interest just grew from line to line. Until I got to the end and saw that the poster was not only a girl, but a hot girl. Than the whole picture changed in my mind and now I see this just as one girl being pissed off about people not giving her the attention she thinks she deserves. Before I noticed it was a hot girl I had this image of a nerd web developer and I would totally agree with him. But now all I see is drama. I feel bad for my pre-concept, but there's nothing I can do.

OoTheNigerian 15y ago
I have gone through her site, and she is as competent as they come design wise. So her only crime is not looking like a stereotype you have in mind? I feel bad for my pre-concept, but there's nothing I can do. You need help and there is something you can do, seek it. It is obvious why you are anonymous.
sbisker 15y ago
Huh? One of her gripes is that she says the speakers are bad, including herself. She says all this about a conference she spoke at, putting both her reputation and the conferences reputation at risk to help bring more strength to her argument. I'd say yeah, you're seeing drama where you want to see drama.
smacktoward 15y ago
Because "nerd web developer" and "attractive woman" are always mutually exclusive.

flotblot 14y ago

The problem is not overpriced conferences. The problems are that employers don't want to shell out $2000/year because it seems like a hefty pricetag, conferences are just of often as not not well-enough organized and operated, and sponsors put off more people than they sell to when they do the hard sell. The ways to fix that are: 1. conferences should instead do a subscription model where you join up for $2000/year and you go to as many conferences as you want (but you have to pay the hotel fee + maybe another $100 or so to keep the riffraff out), 2. if conferences happened more often, the kinks would be worked out, 3. sponsors: give away product and then stay the hell out of it- you'll get the exposure x 10.

mkramlich 14y ago

Attend a local Meetup-like meetup. Free or close to it. Be passive audience or speak or network. No hotel, airfare, rental car worries or costs. No union shenanigans. Eat at home or bring own snack, though many Meetup meetups have free food & drink by sponsors. No boredom or "well I paid for ticket" guilt. Come and go as you like, when you like, minimal structure but still get to meet other people with same technical interests. Lame speakers? Leave -- you didn't pay anything anyway. Granted, you do need enough people in your local area to reach that critical threshold. But don't ignore cheaper, easier, more flexible alternatives.

iuguy 14y ago

I see where the author is coming from. Playing devils advocate as someone who runs a reasonable sized event in London[1] I can tell everyone ere that the single biggest expense is the venue itself, closely followed by all the little bits on top (such as catering etc.). Having said that, £799 for a single track two day conf is a bit steep (for a comparison 44con's two day ticket[2] is £300, fully catered). The biggest bugbear I have is poor speaker ops. Speakers need to be taken care of, if you don't then you'll struggle to attract quality and end up with a depressive spiral. It seems this conference failed. The interesting point for me was Sencha. I wonder if thy had Sencha sponsored slots? We don't do this, especially as people pay to attend. The point about travel expenses is unforgivable. We cover our speakers flights and accommodation so they're not out of pocket. At the very least it shouldn't cost the speaker a fortune to attend. [1] -http://44con.com http://44con.com [2] -http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk