On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Eric Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: > Would it help if they moved the conference around? I think having it in the > same location really limits it as many folk who can't afford to travel would > probably jump at the chance to go if it was local
It's a tricky issue... Wherever it is, it's local for some folks and an expensive trip for others. I expect CFUnited picked up a lot of 'local' developers due to there being a lot of CF work in the DC area. cf.Objective() gets quite a few local developers too (more than I would have expected). Move either conference and those locals may not attend and you may or may not get enough new locals in the target city to make up for that. Because CFUnited was East Coast, it was usually a more expensive conference for West Coast folks (like me) - but see below. Locking into one location for multiple years can save a conference a bunch of money because the venue likes guaranteed revenues for the future. > in Chicago, I think that Chicago area businesses would be more likely to be > sponsors than if the conference was in LA. Finding somewhere in Chicago that can host a 400+ attendee conference is likely to be as expensive as any other major city - and not actually a cheaper airfare from the West Coast (for example - right now IAD, ORD and MSP are all about $400 from SFO). San Francisco is a very expensive location for a conference: CFUnited brought their 'Express' event there once and it was a bit of a financial disaster for them. Costs for the venue were so high they had to budget a much higher ticket price than other 'Express' events and then they only got 40 attendees (it was about $500 for a single day and I think they needed about 100 attendees to make the event worthwhile). There's also the issue that the organizers of a conference often want it local to them because it makes their life much easier (they can visit venues in person, as often as needed, and they generally have better access to local businesses for sponsorship / deals etc). Organizing conferences is hard work - my hat's off to anyone who does it! -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/ An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwoo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:335388 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
