Glenn Cole writes:

> Mike Berkowitz notes that this year's HPWorld conference costs
>  US$1190 for 3.5 days, versus $895 for the same duration last year.
>
>  IIRC, when I noted several years back that HPWorld (or whatever
>  it was called) ceased to be a "good deal," the response was that
>  the new costs were more in line with the conference industry
>  at large.
>
>  Unfortunately, IMHO, that's exactly the wrong attitude.
>
>  Since the costs are similar, *why not* look elsewhere?
>  For example, O'Reilly has an "Open Source Convention"
>  coming up late July in San Diego.
>
>     http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/
>
>  3-day conference registration:  $895  (look familiar?)
>  0.5-day tutorial.............:  $345

I get probably five to ten meeting announcements every week -- and could
attend as many meetings every week for the next ten years if I chose to do so.

My price break point for attending a meeting nowadays is that it cost no more
than $25/day if it is organized by volunteers and $50/day if it put on by a
professional society. I consider these to be the *standard* prices, not the
$300 to $500/day prices that are often quoted by professional convention
organizers.

If you wish, look at the meeting calendar page of the Ecological Society of
America at:

     http://esa.sdsc.edu/meetingcal.htm

These are meetings that are not generally associated with the ESA but may be
of interest to members. Although these meetings are limited to ecological and
conservation issues, they are in general characteristic of all scientific
meetings. But more than that, select at random a few of the meetings --
anywhere in the world -- and calculate the per/day costs.

I've mentioned before that I've been to meetings such as the AAAS (American
Association for the Advancement of Science) meetings, which by coincidence
were often held in the same hotels or convention centers as previous Interex
meetings, sometimes in the same year and in the same rooms, just weeks apart,
with the only differences being the 20:1 price variation -- and the fact that
not nearly so many Nobel Prize winners speak at Interex.

But I've stopped complaining about the extraordinary prices of the Interex
meetings and don't mention that any more.

Wirt Atmar

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *