>Well color me red with embarrassment as I stick my other foot in my mouth. That is not the norm is it? That would explain the lower cost to attend.
>
>Thanks for correcting me.

Yup it is. Most smaller conferences (under 1000 attendees) don't pay speakers and even if they get paid it's not much in return for the time put in to prepare. Speakers get reimbursed for their travel expenses and usually get a speaker dinner and a small gift.

Obviously there are good reasons to go and speak at events for many of us. I for one enjoy speaking, plus it's good publicity. And getting paid is really not anything that matters. But having to pay to go somewhere - that gets to be old quickly. Heck, even user groups traditional try to cover travel costs.

But I still have a bit of a problem with the commodization aspect of free events where you often get similar content and speakers. Just like the value of code and tools has steadily decreased because everything gets thrown out for free (and 'AS IS), this is driving the market for conferences down. Which is fine as long as somebody bankrolls 'free' events or finds cheap/free venues out of the way venues to do it. Over time, that will change, as this becomes expensive, the free/cheap locales realize they can make a buck etc., but by then the bigger conferences will have suffered significantly.