Alan Knowles has this new post over on his weblog talking about conferences and the odd experience in submitting papers for them.

Every year PHP has two or three major conferences, as someone who knows a little bit about PHP, I often put in a proposal on the call for submissions. However, after presenting at a few, the whole process does seem a little odd.

PHP conferences are primarily commercial ventures, where the organizers costs (location, airfares, advertising etc.) are recouped by the attendance fees. [...] The conferences also have a secondary purpose of getting the PHP developers together, and frequently try and sort out some of the more interesting direction issues that some of the PHP projects are taking.

It's good to take a step back and look at all of the conferences that happen every year, and really look at what is that best value for the money...