The economics of international conferences

Ideally, an international conference provides a meeting place where the participants can present and discuss new ideas, research topics, and results. Exposure to state-of-the-art work should help to identify interesting research tracks for today and define new directions for the future. While attendees should get an introduction to high-quality research, conferences should give presenters the opportunity to get feedback through extensive discussions. In practice, however, many large international conferences stray far from this ideal. A combination of economic factors and the pressing need for publication have forced many conference organizers to focus on quantity rather than quality.