Can I suggest Canada for this purpose? We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan; have a fluently English-speaking population anywhere conferences would be held (most people in Montreal are bilingual); have good infrastructure; and most international visitors to the USA already fly over Canada anyway.

This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

But holding conferences in Canada would leave many people with few good options, other than to transfer in the USA.

Transiting through an American airport requires a visa, and [1] had her transit visa cancelled last week, leaving her stranded in Costa Rica.

It was policy at my previous employer, which had lots of work in Central America and an international staff, to avoid transiting through Florida, and use Madrid or Panama instead. The hassle wasn't worth at most a minor saving in cost or time.

Southern Europe would be a cheaper location for conferences, with few visa issues, and is also a lot closer to Asia.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38786119

Of course if the US becomes even worse to transit through airlines will probably route around it.

There is money in conferences and, if the USA wants to make itself as attractive as North Korea for foreign visitors, then the 'second tier' conferences held elsewhere will become the more important events to attend for non-Americans.

I think this is progress in a way, too many industries have some big U.S. trade show event as the focal point of the year and it is a long way to go to get new customers from your own country/town.

Then surely, somewhere in Europe or Asia or perhaps wherever the centre of mass of the conference participants happened to fall would be the cheapest destination? I, for one, do not live in the USA, so Canada would definitely not be cheaper than Europe to visit.

(As for the cost, when I said "cheaper" I meant in terms of the cost of conference facilities, food, and hotels. Obviously the cost of travel will depend on where someone is starting their trip.)

Check the distances on a globe -- "between the USA, Europe and Asia" is actually the Middle East. If we need to account for additional attendance from North America, then somewhere in Europe is better -- and the south or east cheaper than the north or west.

You sure about that? Let's take Denver, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong as representatives of USA, Europe, and Asia, since they're somewhat central to the regions and have major airports.

    DEN-YEG: 1019 miles
    FRA-YEG: 4559 miles
    HKG-YEG: 6504 miles
    Total distances to Edmonton: 12531 miles

    DEN-DXB: 7771 miles
    FRA-DXB: 3012 miles
    HKG-DXB: 3684 miles
    Total distances to Dubai: 14467 miles

A big chunk of Edmonton internatonal connections route through the US airports -- SEA, MSP, DEN, ORD, SFO, etc. Unless Edmonton airport becomes a major global air hub like Dubai, this is just plain laughable. The actual distance in miles is not the primary concern by far. Not to mention the sheer uncompetitiveness of Canadian airline industry and airports in general. Canada is the most expensive air destination in the world.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2931748/international-flights-from...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commen...

Errr, our field's major conf is in Vancouver every other year and those hotel rooms are crazy pants expensive.

For more sources google canada phone password. Tons of results.

Most of the TSA people I know are normal people and have families,kids and stressful job with passengers being aggressive at them for no fault of theirs.

TSA employees are free to quit and find another job that doesn't involve fleecing the public to create security theatre, harassing people for no good reason, etc. They choose not to, and they are responsible for their choices.

The US does not regard this as a valid excuse. Cf. the Nuremberg trials.

I have since seen a handful of industry conferences take place there, but it hasn't really blown up (one reason, I suspect, is it's reasonably expensive to stay there now - Iceland's decline did not last long!)

One, it's hideously expensive now, for almost anyone in the world. Second, it's incredibly small -- 320,000 people in the entire country, and maybe 220,000 of those in the Reykjavik area. Due to the "big fish in a small pond" aspect of Reykjavik being the capital, there's more infrastructure than you'd expect from a city of 200,000 people, but not that much more.

NIPS draws something like 3500 attendees now. I'm not sure there are 3500 hotel rooms in the country of Iceland. I struggled to find a venue that could host 10% of that for AISTATS. AISTATS is single-track which requires one big room, but there would have been very few options for finding a room big enough for just the deep learning breakaways at NIPS.

Aside from that, it's great. We did draw more people from the US than typical AISTATS European years had done, and it's a beautiful country for visitors to enjoy. But I don't think it's capable of becoming a major world conference center at the moment.

edit: I had no idea there was so much China hate here. I'm no fan of certain policies of the government, believe me. I hate the GFW with a passion. But the entrepreneurial community is incredible. There's a lot of skill at the high end and awe-inspiring levels of fearlessness and ambition.

You can't expect people to go to tech conferences in those garbage conditions.

Sounds like it's not an uncommon problem. Frankly I think the conferences are only as successful as they are because of the volume of mainland Chinese citizens and the novelty of a trip to mainland China for people outside of the country.

It's not "China hate" when there's legitimate reasons.

And regardless, kindly don't resort to name calling.

Under optimal circumstances, not including airport time which can be considerable, flight time between New York and Shanghai is 15 hours.

Add in a few hours to check-in, clear customs, plus other nonsense and you're up to 18. Under ideal circumstances.

You claimed 20 hours. I'm asked 'from where' and you weren't able to answer.

I'm not suggesting Beijing is the ideal conference location, even though I live there, but there's no need to spread FUD about how it can take such a long time for a developer to reach there.

Oh, and it takes me the same time to get to SF as it takes an SF-based developer to get to Beijing. Hotels are cheaper in Beijing. Salaries are higher in SF.

If you're talking about America and Europe? Nope.

Then there's Vietnam, which is very poor but growing over 10% / year and highly educated despite the poverty. There are also hundreds of millions of people in Indonesia and Malaysia.

I was speaking not of the US or Europe but the world in general. We don't live in the Eurocentric world of 150 years ago. The center of gravity now spans the Pacific.

Also this entire argument is utterly absurd. If you're upset about brutal domestic policies the last place you should be arguing in favor of is China.

The CIA is not responsible for suppressing the Tiananmen Square incident. Stop spreading bullshit.

Then again, I'm sure it's a nightmare for people from Oceania. Our planet is really inconvenient in that regard, what with being round and all…