[snip] ... a lot ... [/snip] As someone who has put together conferences before and has/is/will be attempting to do a conference like this in the future I can say that for day pricing it may be slightly high, but just slightly. A conference is an expensive thing, usually offset by sponsors to a degree (if you can get them). You have facilities, meals, 'talent', printing, equipment rental, etc. If your cost is $50k then you need 100 participants at $500 to break even.
I have fished a PHP event in Texas around for some time now, and have about 30 folks who are interested in attending. I have done as much as I can to keep the costs low so that the attendance fees can be kept low. But the $50k a year programmer (who loses $10 or more of that to taxes) with a family can ill afford to spend more than a couple of hundred bucks all together attend. Most companies now are tighening their budgets and not paying for these kinds of things. The unfortunate side of this is that many do not get introduced to new items, techniques, products, methods, etc. not to mention the two or three days of being with folks who are in the same professional peer group. My .02 -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php