
Tech conferences moving north as Trump policies turn off attendees - gasull
http://business.financialpost.com/technology/tech-conferences-moving-north-as-trump-policies-turn-off-attendees
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chmod775
Not very surprising. There's little invective besides familiarity with a
location to keep these kinds of conferences in any particular place. So even
small problems like these can send them packing.

The attendees are from all over the world anyways. The big selling point is
going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket to Canada vs buying one to
the US + having to deal with the hassles of US immigration and customs.

~~~
Gys
> The big selling point is going to be the difference of buying a plane ticket
> to Canada vs buying one to the US + having to deal with the hassles of US
> immigration and customs.

Exactly. I for one voted for Canada for exactly that reason.

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rsimmonds
This isn't that surprising when you break it down.

While it's rarely thought about or discussed - Toronto isn't a small little
town in Canada. It's the 4th largest city in North America. Bigger than
Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia.

Combine that with the fact that the Canadian dollar is weak and you've got the
perfect match for tech companies.

~~~
volkl48
Toronto is more like 10th in size (metro population).

Your comparison is based on population within "city limits" which are
arbitrary and widely varying as to how much of the urban area of a city they
cover.

Your overall point isn't invalid, just pointing it isn't that big.

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

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jankotek
To be fair most of those policies were introduced before Trump. USA is
paranoid compared to other countries.

For example I would love to visit Iran, but that would future visits in USA
very difficult.

[https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-
east/ir...](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/middle-
east/iran/usa-stops-esta-visa-waiver-program-for-tourists-who-visited-iran)

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RickJWagner
Could also be the homeless, needles-and-feces-on-the-street and high cost of
attendance at the usual conference venues.

I'm looking at you, San Francisco. :)

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mbrumlow
One conference that I have never heard and now it is "conferences" \-- as in
more than one are moving north?

Also at first glace this conference looks like it was setup by big players
just to have their "own" conference. You see, real conferences where where
real innovation and tech happen at are not concerned with being "the fastest
growing". Looking at the lineup this is clearly for something setup for what I
would assume to be mostly executives to be brainwashed by much larger
companies to use their products. Nobody wants to go and listen to the rubbish
a bunch of CEOs have to say about stuff their engineers should actually be
talking about. Just really feels like somebody figured out money influence and
market control can be had with hosting a conference and so now we have
"Collision" \-- which sounds like a complete knock off of "disrupt"

But who knows, maybe somebody here has gone and will correct me.

 __EDIT __I did not read every line of the article, and yes, 2 other
conferences were mentioned, but the blurb about collision still stands.

~~~
Svip
What about the Creative Commons conference and RightsCon? They were both
mentioned in the article.

~~~
mbrumlow
Thanks, I must have skimmed the article too fast I stand corrected.
"Conferences" is now properly plural for the situation. To be honest while not
a Trump supporter I really don't like reading anything talking about him
because it probably is going to be biased in one way or another.

~~~
wavefunction
"Bias" is a noun and "biased" is the adjective.

~~~
mbrumlow
Thanks. No more post before coffee.

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

~~~
msumpter
IMO the conference market has taken a hit in general prior to the Trump
administration. For the previous several years, attendance and sponsorships
were trending down, it seemed like most companies budgets were being pulled
from onsite training to virtual and sponsoring companies wanted to focus on
their own niche mini show around their products only. We had a healthy percent
of international attendees that came in every year, I can only imagine with
sentiment being customs/immigration is getting worse for travelers, that would
discourage attendees from coming in.

~~~
oligopoly
Market got flooded with too many bs conferenced trying to make a quick buck.

~~~
msumpter
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I think we didn't fully appreciate
how much the 'social' aspect of the show was more important than the
'education' we provided. We de-epmhesized the after show social hours and
other parties, and instead focused on marketing the education factor, and
gradually the fun left the show along with the people. But that's my personal
opinion.

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

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oicu812
The current US restrictions apply to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Syria, Yemen, North Korea and certain Venezuelan government officials and
their immediate families. Were any significant number of conference attendees
from these countries?

I think not. This is just a chearleading article by a Canadian newspaper. Oh
Canada! Our home and native land! Trump is bad and that makes us good by
comparison for thee!

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

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trexen
The Trump policies are those of the democratically elected leader, which means
it's the will of almost the majority of Americans that there should be such
travel restrictions.

Seems a strange and disturbing choice that the US public has made but their
willl should be respected.

Democracy provides for people to vote out the leadership if they don't agree,
although the Google seems to suggest trump is currently looking good for
reelection.

~~~
netsharc
Well, the conference organizers are "respecting" the "US public"'s choice by
holding their conference somewhere where more people are welcome.

If the management of the Holtin Hotels said brown-haired people are no longer
welcome in their hotel, would you hold your conference (which has some brown
haired people attendees) there or would you hold it somewhere else?

~~~
ihsw2
That's not an appropriate comparison, the current administration is no more
racist than the last (if anything it is less racist).

~~~
rsynnott
How racist or otherwise Donnie is is largely irrelevant in this case; the
reality is, his policies make it more difficult for people to hold
international conferences in the US, so they're beginning to go elsewhere. I
don't see what's so hard to grasp about this.

