The prohibitive cost of academic conferences

[sasha_feather]

In June I had the privilege of attending SDS2014, the Society for Disability Studies conference in Minneapolis. SDS did a lot of things right concerning accessibility for people with disabilities. It did not appear that the organizers had put as much thought into economic accessibility. For instance, the venue was an expensive downtown hotel. The nearby restaurants were mostly sit-down restaurants. The convenience shop in the hotel had some bottled beverages and foods at airport prices. Lunch time meetings at the conference felt inaccessible to me, because I didn't know where to grab a sandwich or take out food at a place that I could afford to eat, and get back in time for the session. So I skipped the lunch time sessions; I need to eat according to a set schedule, as I'm sure many folks do. (Note that SDS' discussion of anti-harassment policies occurred during a lunch time session.)

Many academic conferences are similarly expensive, and do not seem to care about being affordable. The registration prices alone can be close to a thousand dollars. This is before hotel, travel, food, and any incidentals for conference participants. Presenters many want to get new clothes or travel gear, for instance. Many people attending academic conferences have their institutions pay for these expenses, or get grants or scholarships to cover them.

Check out two price listings for conferences, just as examples:
An epidemiology conference in Spain
Grace Hopper Women in Computing

I attended SDS as a community member rather than as an academic-- ie, not affiliated with an institution. A friend paid for the reg fee and hotel, and we carpooled there and brought some of our own snacks. SDS does have a sliding scale for their reg fees. Disability studies, unlike many other academic disciplines, values the role of community members and lay people because your lived experience counts. Your embodiment and activism count. You don't necessarily need classes, degrees, and publications to contribute. (I do have some independent-of-the-academy publications.)

My main convention and social event of the year is WisCon, a fan convention, which prioritizes affordability. Many of our affordability issues intersect with other social justice issues, such as disability access and emotional access.

For instance, WisCon provides late-night cab vouchers to get people home from the convention. I imagine the original intent of this service was safety: prevent drunk driving and the like, since alcohol flows fairly free at convention parties. But it also provides an affordable means for people to get home without having to pay for a cab or rely on bus schedules or friends, and means that some people can stay other places than downtown hotels, such as on the outskirts of town at their own or friends' houses or cheaper hotels. It provides independence-- the means to leave the convention when you want (also a safety feature). The cab service we use is a co-op and a union, allowing us to support a local business with shared values. And cabs can be reserved online, which is another accessibility feature.

All of these things intersect. Feeling like your finances are stretched and you can barely afford to be somewhere is stressful and adds to cognitive and emotional load. It means you can't be as present and contribute as fully as you might like. Worrying about affording a meal when you want to go out with friends or colleagues can be embarrassing.

So why are academic conferences so expensive? Not having organized one, or even gone to many, I really have no idea. Looking around on the internet, people say that the fee covers venue, food, and keynote speakers, etc. Probably professional conference organizers plan these things, and take their cut. But conferences can leverage their power as clients to negotiate better deals with hotels and convention centers. They can use university or public venues which are sometimes cheaper. First and foremost, they can simply think about how to lower costs and reduce the economic burden on their participants, instead of assuming everyone who comes is able to blithely afford it.

I do know that charging so much money functions as a gate-keeping mechanism to keep people out. It creates a space where the conference itself is an in-club for people who can afford to be there: a country club effect. The privileged rub elbows and make connections with each other.

This affects the quality of academics. Science, my field of employ, has a myriad of problems with diversity. These things are connected.

Comments

[tim]

I was talking about that just last night at the academic conference I'm at right now ($855 just for registration, ouch -- there's a discount for students, but that doesn't apply to unaffiliated people who don't have an institution footing the bill). The people I was talking to who have organized conferences like this one in the past said that hotels are just incredibly expensive. (Charging $50 a head for a catered lunch that's just bread, cheese and cold cuts is one example.) I brought up the idea of holding conferences at universities (something fairly rare in my field). I was told universities are more expensive than I would think, especially WRT catering. I'm skeptical, but he's been on organizing committees and I haven't.

One thing that more academic conferences could do is to do what math conferences seem to do: charge a minimal registration fee and let people go out to restaurants for lunch and dinner (instead of only dinner, like at the conferences I go to). This relies on venues that are walking distance from restaurants, of course (and obviously, walking distance means different things for different people).

[sasha_feather]

University catering can be expensive, yes, although I don't know how it compares to hotels. I'd be curious to see if conferences can negotiate deals on this type of thing, or if it even occurs to them to try.

If the hotel has mini-fridges and microwaves, this can be stated in the materials. People can bring their restaurant left overs back to the hotel, then. Also, state where local grocery stores are located. Many grocery stores deliver, especially in big cities. Letting people get their own food is also better for folks with food restrictions.

Many fancy hotels have hotel shuttles that will, if asked, take people around to local restaurants and venues, reducing the need for walking long distances.

Anyways, if folks want more ideas! I am working on this shared/shareable Google drive doc for WisCon that has all the things we do for affordability:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T6e-Y3EkBZZKiShlSO4MhT4LbWN1rgTbcsz4ezMrmDI/edit?usp=sharing

[tim]

All good things to know about, since there's a nonzero chance I could end up on one of these committees someday.

[starlady]

I think some of the cost is disciplinary-dependent. I've never been to a humanities conference with a registration cost above $250, and there are usually pre-reg discounts. The idea of charging nearly $1000 for a conference to me seems risible. (I don't think Grace Hopper counts as academic, but rather as tech industry, where costs are even more ridiculous, but everyone's company pays so no one cares.) I think the other thing is that conferences don't necessarily assume that everyone is rich, but rather that everyone who does attend will have gotten assistance from their institution to do so. There's sometimes a large difference between accepted panelists and those who actually show up because of that. And some conferences will provide meals for attendees, more commonly when they're in a remote location. Ive been to several international conferences that did that to make attendance slightly more affordable. Which is to agree with your point that most academic conferences are pitched at an in-group, namely academics.

Okay, I have to run now, but I'll be back later with more!

[sasha_feather]

Why is it that humanities conferences are so much cheaper? What are the differences?

[starlady]

Lolol humanities people are used to much lower standards. One of the things that blew me away when I got involved with new media was how much nicer things were. And how much more money there was sloshing around conferences. But partly my new media center economizes by using the very nice university venues that they can get for free or reduced rates, so there's more money to spend on things like attendee lunches. And frankly in San Francisco the assumption is that everyone is using their smartphones to find cheap meals on Yelp.

I've been on the periphery of several humanities conferences, and they are mostly NOT organized by professionals. The biggest association conferences will be planned by organization staff (such as AHA or APSA or AAS), but most academic conferences, ime, are planned by an overworked crew of professors and graduate students, or the staff of the center/department putting on the conference. Professional organizers are the domain of industry conferences, not academic ones. There really isn't the money for that, at least not on the humanities side. I'm sure sciences and medicine are totally different, but I would wager that at least a few science conferences are similar, particularly in the less well-funded disciplines, such as astronomy.

Conferences that are sufficiently large enough *do* get conference rates at hotels and convention centers. Sometimes those conference rates are still ridiculous, which is why most academics I know try to split hotel rooms at conference rate with at least one other person.

The food thing is a good point, for sure. And the cost does function as a gatekeeping mechanism, but the thing about academia is that people are just as likely to see that as a feature than as a bug.

[jesse_the_k]

Building on starlady's point about institutional support:

Some of the reasons people go to conferences cry out for money from one's employers. If you're a newer company — whether software, hardware, textbook publisher, lab machinery designers — then showing up at the relevant conference is the most effective marketing and advertising you can do. Based on the conferences I attended as a software publisher, as well as SDS and SF cons, it does seem that entry fees are highest for commercial enterprises (publishers, dealers). The rule-of-thumb is 10% of gross sales annually, on the off chance you wanted to know that.

[bibliofile]

IIRC WisCon started the taxi vouchers as an affordability thing, since the hotel shuttle stops running at 10 PM and the city buses stop running by 12 or 1 (and much earlier on Sunday night). And safety too, of course, but acknowledging that not everyone stays at the main hotel.

[j00j]

Here's another thing about academic conferences. Even if you're fortunate enough to be employed by an academic institution that will cover some of the costs, often you're expected to cover some costs and be reimbursed. Hotel costs are the most common, since hotels really only want to deal with credit cards, and academic institutions are reluctant to cut a check in advance for the cost of the hotel (plus they'd have to know exact cost including tip, etc). I'm able to do this, but I know a coworker has had to discuss her financial situation with our (understanding) boss in order to make conference travel possible for her. Not everybody has a credit card or room on a card for this kind of thing.
Local open source tech conferences I attend seem to be pretty good about getting sponsors. They get space at a university, which also sponsors other things like catering sometimes. $25 for a one day conference is pretty common. And you can volunteer for a free/reduced membership.
Major academic IT conferences in my area of expertise (EDUCAUSE, for instance) can easily run $600-$700 for registration, plus hotel, meals, etc. The registration fee is often waived if you're a presenter, though, so that's one way to make the cost a bit more manageable for institution or self.
Professional certifications aren't quite the same thing, but I've definitely noticed since getting my project management cert how expensive continuing education (I have to do a certain number of hours) is; a lot of these opportunities assume I work for a corporation that will pay for super expensive conferences or other things. I could go on a fucking cruise and collect a zillion Professional Development Units. What. Thankfully there are options that are free (reading related books, if I can get the books) or free with my membership to PMI (which is also $$).