LISA2004 Registration is open

[yesthattom]

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Other than seeing friends from around the country what's my compelling reason for registering?

Not that seeing my friends isn't a good reason. I'm just not sure it's a $3k+ out-of-pocket reason. :-)

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

Share a room and only attend the tech conference. That way you don't pay anywhere near $3K (well, unless you have a very large airline ticket bill). But, yeah, the hallway track/friends is my main reason for going. Occasionally there's a technical gem or two that's actually conference sponsored, too.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I started writing an answer and it turned into an article... so I posted it here:
http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/archives/000044.html

[jss]

And on a tangent, the Conference Attendee FAQ may help you with ideas of what to do there, and maybe how you can sell it to your manglement.

I got my brochure

[mrfantasy.livejournal.com]

Some weirdo is doing a talk about time management for sysadmins, and a talk on the Dean campaign. I probably won't go myself, but I should really send someone.

Re: I got my brochure

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Who could that be? :-)

[(Anonymous)]

I definitely can't afford to send myself this year and there isn't much in the tech sessions of job-relevant interest this year. Okay, there is the spam symposium I'd be required to report on if attending and one paper (during the spam stuff of course) on a piece of software which we may wind up using (and customizing the hell out of for our environment, so it's not likely if I can get a different, more flexible but poorly documented tool working).

The conference without tutorials and four nights of hotel comes to CDN$2k plus a few hundred for meals and taxis that our department could spend more wisely. The price easily doubles with tutorials, which have again this year been scheduled with conflicts for my set of interests and responsibilities. And tutorials during the tech sessions? There's a guarantee I wouldn't be able to attend Tom's tutorials.

I'll probably make the pitch anyway.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/archives/000044.html

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

So I was looking over the cost of attending the tech sessions, and... I noticed that if you're not a student but are a USENIX member, you pay more per day ($275 if you also have a SAGE membership, $295 without) to attend two days than one day ($250/$290) OR three ($215/$228.30). What's up with that?!

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

I've forwarded your question on to The People Who Should Be Able To Answer. I'll post their reply when I get it.

Lee Damon
Chair, LISA 2004

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Are you reading the registration page correctly? It looks like there is a pretty consistent discount for members, and for multiple days.

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

That's the page I was reading, yes...

http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/registration/#techfees

USENIX+SAGE 1 day $250, 2 days $550
USENIX only 1 day $290, 2 days $590

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

From the conference office:

The source is correct. The idea behind the pricing model, as I recall,
was to strongly encourage people to attend all three days of tech
sessions and to encourage people who might not otherwise attend at all
to come to a single day. In other words, it's not to discourage two-day
attendees, but to give discounts to both ends.

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that that only applies to people who are standard USENIX members. If you're just a SAGE member, or a USENIX affiliate, or a student, then the price per day gets cheaper with each day. No, I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, just a poor (imho) marketing decision.

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

More from the conference office:

Your source's comment made us revisit the fee structure, Lee. You can see the revised version on the Web:

http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/registration/#techfees (http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/registration/#techfees)

It's a coherent scheme, with each additional day visibly cheaper.

[kazmat.livejournal.com]

Hooray for coherency! :D

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting that you saw that banner ad before I did.

Now to post it all over my web site and stuff.

[kitschparade.livejournal.com]

...and thank $deity they ditched the previous two years' typography on the logo. guess there's a bit more money to spend this time around.