Earlybird* member of IFA | €574.08 |
Earlybird* non-member | €693.68 |
Earlybird* consumer* | €418.60 |
Student** | €358.80 |
Conference dinner | €83.72 |
Have a look at the IFA Congress 2012 page, and see yet again what happens when the organisers are not doing the work themselves but outsource to Elsevier. Let me make a quick calculation: cheapest possible with early bird. The student fee is the cheapest with 360 € plus 80 € conference dinner. So 440 € plus 4 days accommodation (lets say cheapest 50€). So we are at 640 € plus travelling. Let's say from Britain: 150 €. So we end up with roughly 800 €. And that is the very cheapest! Which student can pay that, except if it comes from a research grant.
If you are a consumer (i.e. stutterer) or a therapist, you must pay at least 1000€. If you come from overseas, probably 1500 or more. That pretty much excludes all except the richest countries.
The key is that Elsevier is taking a profit and you have to pay VAT. And they would claim that they have to pay staff and website. But that is a semi-lie as their staff probably handle 10+ conferences each, and most admin is done by the website.