After having been around putting on small conferences, it is a LOT of work on the organizers. Many do it for the love of the field, but there needs to be something for the organizers whether it is public thanks, financial support over and above just paying for expenses.
There is constantly pressure from vendors to pay less, from attendees not being able to pay fees, from venues needing to get more for their space (I doubt this was much in pressure at WWC, but I know I don't know). After doing a conference for a number of years, even if you still love the field, driving a conference gets old. This is why many turn to commercial conference companies to 'deal with it'. Then prices for everyone does tend to go up, but the conference does go on. Even with their help, it is still hard to keep conferences on track. Is any of than an answer or explanation to why? I doubt it. But I hope it helps some see the perspective and to keep saying thanks to the conference organizers for any conference. --- For the 'geek' community of various genre's (software and hardwer hackers/makers/builders, trekkies, comic, scifi, etc) there are still large and small 'cons' across the land. The 'maker' movement has the commercial Maker Faires, often sponsored by local hacker spaces and/or Make: Magazine. I think that if there is a strong CNC presence in an area (club? interest group of any kind?), they might try putting on a CNC-Con possibly elsewhere. It won't be the same, but there is obviously a need. One local 'con' here in Nashville TN works with local 'second level' hotels that have significant meeting rooms/ball rooms, and give the group a significant discount on blocks of rooms to try to fill the hotels on non-football, non-other big venue attractions in the area weekends. I like the idea of using small colleges in 'off season'. There might be opportunities s for that elsewhere in the country as well. --- Just some suggestions. ... sorry I have missed going to this CNC conference, I have 'meant to' but never did. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_sfd2d_oct _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
