A bunch of students attend UX London every year either through bursaries, or like I did, they volunteer at the event. Same with dConstruct and Ampersand. Clearleft runs free events too like Skillswap which are open to everyone. They also have a paid internship scheme that has been running for years.

Same goes for UX London and others like it. They're the 'high-level' conferences, the ones we (or at least I) aspire to attending one day, when I can afford it. The lineups are stellar and you know you're getting your money's worth.

Trying to force UX London to lower their ticket prices just for you is like asking Tiffanys or de Beers to make cheaper diamonds just so you can have one.

Now it looks like I'm sitting on the sidelines criticising AND insulting the organisers. I'm sure I had a rule about never publishing blogs just before you go to bed ...

As I commented on Andy's blog, if the big expensive conferences go down the traditional early/standard/late route then you exclude those who can't afford these high costs (which are justified in terms of the speaker quality and the people you meet). Which means they don't see the great speakers, they don't meet client-side people from large companies etc.

But there are other pricing structures - such as discounts for the people I mentioned in the post, which would give them a change to learn from and meet the sorts of people that only expensive conferences can ship in / see attending.

Jeffrey - Sure. It doesn't mean that the approach can't be criticised or critiqued.

Leif - No. But I don't think any organisation should be immune from discussion. We expect companies to have CSR policies these days. Why should conference organisers be immune from criticism or feedback about how they structure their events or pricing?

Everyone - my apply to Andy said I'd delete this post. As you've all taken the time to comment, I won't do that. But I'll remove UX London from the title once it's dropped off the top of my blog home page to avoid any suggestion of chasing that search term (not that it would do me any good ...).

Sounds rather self-centred to me. If the conference is too expensive for you (they're too expensive for me BTW) you simply don't go, and let others enjoy it.

Anyway, to avoid looking too much like a dick, I'll donate the £100 to charity as you already offer student discounts and bursaries, leave the post up for a week so people can see your response, and then remove it so as to avoid any unwanted SEO traffic (I'm not quite sure what I'd do with that anyway). I'll send you the charity receipt which you can bin.

I'm not going to set up my own low-cost accessible conference. Like you, I already speak at them. Beyond that, I don't have the time. I don't feel bad about that, to be honest.

First off, lets start with the price. Early bird tickets to UX London are actually £745 which works out at under £250 per day. Considering the bulk of the event are workshops and a typical workshop would set you back £400 for a day, this seems like pretty good value to me.

Secondly, we do offer a limited number of student tickets at drastically knocked down prices. We've also offered bursary tickets in the past, allowing students to attend for FREE. We also encourage students to volunteer at the event giving them access to the content at zero cost.

However we realise that not everybody can afford to attend a 3 day conference based in London, so for the last 7 years we've run a low cost event called dConstruct which is specifically targeted towards freelancers.

Back in the early naughties I set up a free community training event called SkillSwap which aimed to distribute peer-to-peer education for free. This event is still going on and has spawned numerous copies.

Lastly I regally speak at free community events as well as disseminating information through my blog, though magazines and podcasts for free.

As such I find your implication that I'm somehow stingy with my time and that the only way I'll help other people out is by you publicly bribing me, to be offensive in the highest degree.

On the subject of local versus international speakers I think it's important to have events that offer both. With plenty of low cost UX events from London IA and UX Bookclub, through to mini conferences like UX Brighton, UX Bristol and UX People it wouldn't make sense for us to arrange another event with mostly local talent on the bill. One of the benefits of being in our position is that we are able to attract some of the best known speakers over to the UK and put them in front of an audience that may not be able to afford to fly over to the states and see them.

What you're saying is akin to bemoaning the ticket price at Glastonbury and suggesting that They could keep prices down to a tenner if they just booked local Somerset acts. What I'm suggesting is that it's good to have a range of musical events for a range of different tastes and budgets, from the local pub band to the big summer festival, and everything in-between.

That being said, as an SEO expert this is a fantastic bit of promotional link bait as it allows you to hijack a popular search term/discussion and make yourself look like the hero while a company that actually does stuff for the community comes across looking stingy.

So rather than putting my money where your mouth is, why don't you do something more positive and productive instead. So I call on you to keep your £100 and put on your own low cost, accessible conference. However I guess you probably won't as it's a lot easier to write a blog post and offer up a small amount of money than it is to take a risk and create something positive in the world.

When Andy speaks about how incredibly expensive the small things are (like the coffee and wifi), what that really translates into is "We have to pass that huge expense on to the attendees."

I will always vote for smaller, more intimate conferences that are far cheaper. But I do agree that there is room for every level of conference. It just come down to whether it's right for you.

You indirectly quoted me there.

My point is simple. If I go to a free conference I expect nothing in return. Nothing. Usually I'm delighted, as some kind folks (of which I'd regularly be one) will prepare a good talk and as a result I'll leave educated.

But I've been to many many free events that have simply been not worth my time.

When I paid £800 to attend UX London, I expected a lot. An awful lot in fact. It was the most amount of money I'd ever spent on a personal trip ever. Add in flights & hotel and I was out of pocket about £1.5K. And luckily it delivered. Everyone in the room was there to learn, there wasn't a flurry of people idly tweeting and talking. Everyone was participating in the workshops. Everyone was there to get their moneys worth. That's the tone I'm talking about.

When I pay 2.5K for a laptop when I could get some piece of shit netbook for 500, I expect it to be at least 5 times better. If there was a 5K laptop I'd be interested in that too.

All of these things make me better, smarter, more efficient, whatever. I'm always happy to invest in myself, and my skills, once I believe the value proposition. In the case of UX London it was Spend £800 - come back with new or improved skills that will help you earn it back many times over. It worked.

So if there was a web conference that cost £8000, and I had the cash, my only question would be "Do I think I'll learn new or improved skills that will help me earn £8K back many times over. If I think Yes, then out comes the wallet".

Could I get the same skills at regional conferences? Possibly. Possibly not. Sometimes I have. Sometimes I haven't.