ApacheCon On The Cheap?

pixel_bc asks: "I got a bit of a kick out of the registry page for ApacheCon - where it says Open Source developers should attend, and then goes on to list a $1200 dollar price tag. Most of us aren't funded, thanks. Are there any Apache conferences that are more financially accessable? Should there be?" And for those of you who are actually forking out the $moolah$, where might one find affordable accomodations to make that cost-of-admission a little less painful?

Re:Plenty of hostels in SF

[Cato]

SF also has decent public transport, and is mostly walkable - if you stay in Silicon Valley (not in a hotel next to the conference) you pretty much have to have a car.

Become a Presenter

[winterstorm]

If your doing Apache-related work and feel you must attend, perhaps the best way to get the costs down is to apply as a presenter. Presenters don't pay admission do they?

Look at YAPC for inspiration

[modred2]

Yet Another Society(YAS) [yetanother.org] has put together the Yet Another Perl Conference [yapc.org] for a couple of years now, which is low cost perl conference. It might be worth looking at what they have done with Perl and see if it could be applied to Apache.

Plenty of hostels in SF

[raju1kabir]

San Francisco has plenty of hostels [hostels.com] where you can stay for $20 or less per night. Caltrain costs a few bucks to get you to Santa Clara.

I'm sure you could stay somewhere on the peninsula for cheap as well, but let's face it, everything south of Daly City is a suburban hellhole with jack to do at night - or in the daytime for that matter. SF's not that much better for nightlife, but at least it's civilized.

It shouldn't cost you more than $250 for a flight from anywhere in the continental US if you can book a couple weeks in advance. Look at Southwest [iflyswa.com], Priceline [priceline.com], and the various travel specials [smarterliving.com] out there.

Don't bother

[ClubPetey]

I've been to tons of conventions. Unfortunately, most are not worth the time or cost. I've also noticed that the number of conferences in computers has grown extremely high. There's a simple reason for this: Companies spend tons of money. I've found this is the only way to afford conventions. The prices continue to rise, becuase the companies continue to pay. What we need is a good boycott of these events to bring the price back into line. But hey, the same can be said for baseball tickets.

become a presenter

That's good in theory, but the Convention types are on to you. Now presenters have to pay, and in some cases the guest speakers have to pay. In fact, I had someone call me at home and ask me if I would like to speak at an upcomming Telephony Conference. Once I said yes, his next question was how I would like to pay for that (all $999 of it). Needless to say, I didn't go.

Oh, and since you asked, here's what I could dig out of my box-o-convention-forms, most of these I've attended once, and aren't bad. Some lean a bit heavy toward IT and away from coding though:

O'Rielly Open Source Con [oreilly.com]

Linux Business Expo [key3media.com]

Open Source Forum [key3media.com]

Java One [sun.com] (yes, there are a LOT of apache people there)

CMP Event list [cmp.com] (good list of conference/trade shows)

I am just a little curious if these Cons are just ways for the Apache group to make money while CLAIMING that they are open source. I can understand donations to fund the effort, but $1200/person is more on the scale of a "political contribution". Wait... that just must be my paranoia...

--
He had come like a thief in the night,