
Overpriced Developer Conferences - duggan
http://www.amberweinberg.com/overpriced-developer-conferences/
======
mgkimsal
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> 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
Can you elaborate on the costs? Why do you need catering?

Thanks for eliminating the "schwag" waste. I also hate that crap.

~~~
mgkimsal
Conference venue costs - While I'd prefer we were at a hotel, to allow easier
movement for attendees and speakers (and better nightlife/restaurant
selection) other venues I've looked at in the area _start_ at roughly double
what we're paying now. Oh, and then you have to add in A/V costs on top of
that. Our conference center provides nice projection screens (huge) and nice
mics as part of the rooms.

Catering - people need to eat. 99% of conference venues will not let you bring
in random food, or in most cases even professional catering companies, unless
they're on an approved list. Snacks/coffee/tea/etc throughout the day cost.
Our food cost, including lunch, was north of $20/head. This is surprisingly
cheap.

Power - some conference venues charge you for power access. $x/seat or
something. We cut down on that this year compared to first year because few
people seemed to use it the first years.

Wifi - our conference center has good wifi and it's free. One place I looked
at said wifi access was $25/head/day. That's not a typo.

One of my goals was to have an event with non-local speakers. A barcamp is
great, but... you end up seeing mostly the same people speak on the same
topics. By having people from out of the area (state/region) speak, you'll be
guaranteeing most attendees in the region won't have seen/met these speakers
before. That costs something. Most of our speakers have been gracious with
their time, but I wanted to at least cover some of their expenses in travel.
With 20 speakers, and 8-10 with that sort of assistance, that's an additional
cost.

I lost > $3k on the first event. ~$2k this time around, and would like to
break even this year, or perhaps (gasp) make a small profit. A large profit
would allow me to do regional versions of indieconf in different areas,
bringing together a mix of local and non-local experts on various freelancing
topics. That was the idea 2 years ago, but I can't commit to that until I know
I won't keep losing money.

EDIT: oh yeah, insurance. The venue requires an insurance policy. For the
minimum coverage, that's another... $600 or so.

EDIT 2: I would have probably broken even this year except for 2 things.

1) speaker dinner. Given the enormous effort many of our speakers put in (and
travel) I like to have a low-key speaker dinner that's private for them to
unwind. We have a few attendees that pay for a premium ticket to have a few
dining hours for some one-on-one with our speakers. As fun as it's been, we
may change that event this year.

2) After-party. This year instead of some ritzy club or venue, we had a jazz
trio come in and had some catered snacks (veggie trays, etc). No alcohol, but
I don't think anyone cared.

Without those two additional things, I think we'd have broken even this year
on tickets and sponsorships. I'd rather not eliminate either one, as I think
they each add something special for different groups.

~~~
citricsquid
> Wifi - our conference center has good wifi and it's free. One place I looked
> at said wifi access was $25/head/day. That's not a typo.

At Minecon (a convention for Minecraft) in the Mandalay Bay Las Vegas they
were (if I recall the figure correctly) charged $50,000 for wifi for 2 days.
It's insane, especially when the wifi was absolutely unusable.

~~~
rhizome
Certainly those rates should entitle one to an actionable SLA...am I clueless?
I'm not trying to rag on unions at all (though what union would neteng be a
part of?), but for insane money you should get insane service.

------
jperras
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>. 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
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.)

------
ScottWhigham
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.

------
nadam
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
"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.

------
jonheller
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.

------
vetler
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>

Videos from last year: <http://vimeo.com/tag:javazone2011>

------
Apreche
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
Let's make it happen. We can use the Javits Center in NYC.

~~~
yo-mf
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...

------
jrmg
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_non...](http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/)

~~~
k33l0r
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>

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>

~~~
kd0amg
_but good luck finding a restaurant that can cater to 200-300 people at once_

Do the attendees really all have to go to the same restaurant?

~~~
dagw
As someone else mentioned, the real conference happens around the food, the
speakers and presentations are just a side show. If everybody disappeared off
with their friends to eat on their own, then you've lost much of the point of
a conference. At every conference I've been to the highlights have almost
always been meeting awesome people over lunch or drinks, and only very rarely
any of the actual presentations.

~~~
kd0amg
I've only gone to conference once, but I generally ate out with groups of
people who didn't already all know each other. A table only holds so many
people, so the same strategy is necessary whether people scatter to
restaurants or stay in one place for a catered meal.

------
andrewmcdonough
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/>

------
kayoone
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.

------
dustingetz
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
_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.

------
BrianLy
> 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.

------
TomGullen
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
Have you seen how much hotels, conference centres charge for venue, beverages
etc :)

~~~
estel
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
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 :-)

------
ColinWright
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.

------
robomartin
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.

~~~
eru
I wonder why unions seem to have such horrible effects in the US, while they
are comparatively useful in Germany and Scandinavia? Perhaps the explanation
for that will also encompass the British unions and Margaret Thatcher?

~~~
robomartin
Not sure about Europe. After having dealt with unions in the US for quite some
time my general opinion of the average unionized worker is not very kind:
lazy, non-productive, selfish, self-important, over-paid, unfairly protected,
de-humanized, and more.

Of course, this is a gross over-simplification and a generalization that is
not fair to a lot of people. There are good unionized workers.

I'll give you an example: Las Vegas Convention Center. Doing some work at
night setting up computers, etc. The crew that installs the carpets comes in.
Their job is, quite literally, to roll out the carpeting. I watched as this
unfolded. Every hour or so a supervisor would roll around on a little electric
cart and would tell people that they had to take a break. The workers would
lay down on the carpet and go to sleep. This ballet continued for hours. The
work that could have been done in three hours too six, if not more. I asked
one of them how much they made. She, very proudly replied: $45 per hour plus
benefits and a pension plan. My jaw dropped.

Then there are the stories of the security guards making $150K a year to sit
on a chair by a door. And the stories of the union worker refusing to lend a
hand because the task is not in their union contract.

Anyhow, the issue, as I see it, is that unions have resulted in hordes of
people that are devoid of any real drive to succeed and move forward in life.
In unions there are few incentives to be better at what you do. In a lot of
union contracts you just can't be fired. I mean, take the examples of
(unionized) teachers sexually assaulting students. They don't get fired, they
are transfered and "hidden" in another job. There was a recent case of a
(unionized) teacher who was feeding his students cookies with semen on on top.
That's beyond sick. And, as I understand it, the guy was not fired and will
enjoy his 80% pension for the rest of his life.

Anyhow, I don't want to go off on that tangent, but I've just seen too many
examples where unions are just destroying drive, innovation and
competitiveness in this country. It's a damn shame.

~~~
huxley
People usually treat venue staff like crap, so it's no wonder that they might
be surly. They are anticipating prima donnas walking in and screaming at them
(and they do).

When you bring a big event to a venue you are creating an immense amount of
work. You're only there for a short time, you show up for a few days and then
leave. They're there all the time. A janitor can make or break your
conference. Can you imagine what 1500 people do to a venues' washrooms?

Before our events, we always go and introduce ourselves to the staff. We try
to keep things friendly and it's always paid off for us. I hand out my
business cards to every staff member from hotel clerks to cleaners to security
guards. If they have any problems or questions, they have my personal cell
number to call.

If we have pizza brought in for the volunteers, we always offer some to the
shift workers there. We try to be pleasant and courteous to the staff ahead of
time, you won't believe what a huge difference it makes.

On the 2nd day of our last event, one of the security guards bought me a
screwdriver set out of his own money because he saw we needed one. Doesn't
always happen but people can surprise you.

~~~
drumdance
It's good that you make the extra effort, but it's not like these people are
waiters that make their living from tips. I work a lot too and sometimes get
frustrated with customers, but that doesn't give me license to treat them like
crap.

~~~
huxley
Well, we're all the protagonists of our own story. I'm sure some people think
I'm a surly bastard.

My job can be pretty stressful too, but I rarely have to deal with a washroom
stall covered in filth from the most disturbing case of explosive diarrhea
ever.

Likewise I'm not usually expected to escort out a distraught, screaming
homeless person who is having a psychotic episode in the middle of a busy
convention center.

Hakuna Matata.

Just assume someone has dealt with something like that or worse and it gets
easier to be nice to them, even when they're behaving like right old pricks.

~~~
marcusf
This might be OT, but you seem like a very good guy. I've no deeper insight to
offer than that, just wanted to say it.

------
perlgeek
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.

------
daleharvey
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

------
robotmay
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
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/> .

~~~
decode
> 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.

~~~
bmelton
I thought he meant that they were provided BMWs for transportation.

Thank you so much for that clarification.

------
fridek
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
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 :-)

------
nextstep
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
_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-extende...](http://googlecode.blogspot.de/2011/11/google-
io-2012-extended-to-three-days.html)

------
Su-Shee
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.

------
kapowaz
> 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…

------
petercooper
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.

------
freshrap6
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
There are lots of conferences like that in the US. Strange Loop, Philadelphia
ETE, Code Mash, OSCON, etc.

~~~
freshrap6
Is there an easy place to find out about these conferences and more like them?

~~~
puredanger
There's a guide of interesting US conferences that I like here:
[http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-
conferences-...](http://lanyrd.com/guides/developer-run-software-
conferences-2012/) and the search functionality in Lanyrd is pretty useful:
<http://lanyrd.com/search/>

~~~
freshrap6
Thanks!

------
adrianhoward
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.

------
jscheel
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.

------
iuguy
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> [2] -<http://44con-2012.eventbrite.co.uk>

------
talmand
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
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
There are several cities that aren't really expensive that have tons of cheap
conference space, see, Atlanta.

------
keva161
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.

------
flotblot
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.

------
roqetman
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/>

------
100k
I help run a free conference for about 1,000 people (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!

------
digitalclubb
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.

------
ticks
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
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
[http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_non...](http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2011/09/theres_a_lot_of_nonsense/)

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.

------
RedwoodCity
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.

------
gouranga
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.

------
mesh
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.

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

------
tlrobinson
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.

------
kelvin0
Clicking on the link to this articles freezes systematically my Firefox!

------
georgieporgie
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.

------
mkramlich
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.

------
dudus
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.

~~~
sbisker
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.

