Comped scribblers the bane of conferences

[Declan McCullagh]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 09:02:06AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
> First, $1500 per conference sounds way too high, even by today's 
> inflated standards.

Tim, you haven't been to that many commercial conferences recently. I
spoke at Internet World last month, and that's exactly how much it is.
Even given the economic downturn, they haven't dropped the price.
It's still $1,500 for the fall IW:
http://www.internetworld.com/events/fall2001/conf_reg.php

> Second, I can't believe there are 100 such conferences a year! If you 
> are going to 2 conferences per week for most of a year, you're going to 
> way too many conferences!

Maybe. But here in DC, there are scores of such conferences each year,
and I could easily go to one or two a week. Some of my colleagues at
other news organizations, like National Journal Tech Daily, do that.

Even "nonprofit" conferences are still pricey:

http://www.abanet.org/annual/2001/registration.html
$650.00

http://www.cfp2001.org/php/control/main.php?l1=2
$685 

> Third, even scaling back the prices and numbers, I wasn't suggesting 
> that no journalist be comped. Just that comping nearly a third or more 
> of all attendees says something is out of whack.

Probably. Usually there are only a few (~20) journalists who are actually
going to cover the event.

-Declan