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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At academic conferences, you can present your research as a talk, or on a poster that you stand by for an hour and then people come ask you about it.

Talks are given only to high-ranking PhDs since there are limited presentation rooms. Meanwhile, acceptance rates for posters is 99% since they just throw up some poster boards in a big ballroom.

Why such a high acceptance rate? The conference organizers get kickbacks from the conference hotels like free rooms and so on, but it depends on attendees booking a certain number of hotel rooms. By accepting all posters, those people have justification to go to the conference and will then stay in a room.

I've debated having my 3 year old scribble on a poster board and submitting that. I bet she'd be accepted![/quote] I have always wondered about this. We pay SO much to attend a particular conference and it seems like we get less and less for it every year but the rates keep going up! We used to get coffee and light snacks between some plenary session but about 2 years ago that stopped and we had to buy coffee. Basically we get a conference bag and to attend the sessions and that's it for 1k! It is the primary conference in my field so not going is not really an option.[/quote]

Usually for coffee and snacks they get a sponsor, but sponsors started balking. We were at a conference with 1,000 people and they wanted $6k to "sponsor" a 15-minute coffee break. I realize they pay hotel catering rates for coffee, and it's based on # of attendees not # of people who actually get a drink, but it's just not worth it. We'd rather spend half that money on a happy hour at a local bar and get much more benefit.[/quote] I don't know if they used sponsors for it before I kind of doubt it though, it's an international conference organized by an organization based in France (but our conference is held in a different venue around the world). That is in line with what we pay when we "host" workshop sessions- they accept our workshop then make us rent from their chose facility at ridiculously high rates in Euros- like 10k (I'm at an American company). But they can practically do whatever they want because it's THE conference in my field.[/quote]

Not sure if this is related, but some conferences we do move around to a new city each year. While it's fun to see new places, it also means our money doesn't always go so far. It costs us 50% more to have a reception in NYC than in Texas. No surprise, just maybe they had to cut back some years due to high costs in that city.[/quote]

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