Travel and don't forget hotel. Ajaxian's Ajax Experience is in Boston as well and the special hotel pricing is $219 a night plus 12.45% tax.

You would think with the economic times these conferences would consider more centralized locations that are more affordable.

At least there's an upcoming Flash Camp in Atlanta.

Well, it is probably a hard thing to balance. If you pick an out of the way location, you may get less people showing up. Picking a centralized location means more attendees ( most likely) but higher costs.

That may be true, but I can't see it costing more to hold a conference in Atlanta, or even Dallas, than in Boston. Even with a chunk of the staff having to fly there themselves.

My main reason for not going to the Ajax Experience is purely the cost of getting there and hotel costs, nothing to do with the cost of attending.

Flash on the Beach in Miami was canceled due to low response. I imagine the reason for low numbers is that it was in Miami. An expensive place to stay and probably the most out of the way location in the U.S. other than Alaska or Hawaii. It was a silly choice.

At least an Event Apart events are held in multiple locations across the country. But again they pick expensive locations; Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago. If you live nearby then no big deal, if you need a hotel then things get iffy.

Hopefully attendance numbers don't lag to cause some of these conferences to close up shop. Therefore, I think you should go to the jQuery conference for two reasons; report on what you got out of it for us that can't go and to report on attendance numbers.

Heh, well, will you pay my travel expenses? ;) I don't travel a lot in the fall because my kids are in school - I tend to attend mostly summer conferences, with MAX being the only real exception. If I do go, of course, I'll review it. I _want_ to go for sure.

@Travis: The reason that we hold it yearly in Boston, right before or immediately after The Ajax Experience, is because so many developers attend The Ajax Experience which makes it easier to justify in terms of travel. If we held it someplace else, developers would then have to justify two trips to their supervisors. We're over 100 registrations in a little over 2 days so you can expect a great turnout.

@Ray: The conference is $150 for the 2 days. http://events.jquery.com/

@raymond - dude, if I could pay your way then I'd be paying mine, you should hit up InsideRIA for a bit of it and if that works for you then tell them I'd be willing to write something up as well ;-)

@rey - excellent point, I had not realized that the two were dated that way, but at over $200 a night in Boston (according to Ajax Experience) I don't think travel costs is the significant factor in the equation.