I did some math to calculate the minimum damage that attending JavaOne may cause to your valet. In my calculations I was assuming registration fee of $2500 (waived for speakers). I did not take into account early bird discounts or any other coupons that could bring the fees down to $1500). I did not include local transportation, parking food and drink expenses, which for some people may substantially increase the cost of attendance. So let’s see …
1. For a speaker (non-consultant) living in the Bay area: $0
2. For a speaker (consultant between the projects) living in the Bay area: $0
3. For a speaker (consultant on the project) living in the Bay area: $3000 – $5000 of lost earnings.
4. For a regular attendee (non-consultant) living in the Bay area: $2500
5. For a regular attendee (consultant between the projects) living in the Bay area: $2500
6. For a regular attendee (consultant on the project) living in the Bay area: $5500 – $7700 for the lost earnings + the registration fees
For US attendees living in the East coast, add from $1000 to $1500 for air tickets and hotel to the above .
If you do not live in the USA, add an extra $500-$1000 for more expense air tickets, and residents of some countries may have to shell out additional up to $200 for the US entry visas.
If you’ll add all these numbers, some people (or their employers) will spend at least $10000 USD to attend JavaOne. And guess what, all these expenses won’t stop at least 12000 people (may be more) from coming in to SF this year. They must be in love with this beast called Java. By the way, how much did you spend on you recent vacation with your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend? Who do you love more: them or Java?
The funny thing is that there is a substantial number of people who will come to JavaOne, but will not attend even a single technical session. They will just hang out in the nearby bars and restaurants making new friends and contacts. Networking, networking, networking (a.k.a location, location, location) …
Anyway, I’m planning to be there participating in the Java Champions panel and some JDJ events. See you there.
P.S. I “m not going to tell you how much it’s going to cost me to be there 🙂
yakovfain.com 
“P.S. I’m not going to tell you how much it’s going to cost me to be there”
Good choice, spouse/girlfriend might read it and get mad 😉
Funny thing here, some of us live in countries with up to 56% taxes. As a consultant, my vacation is not deductible so why not let the SPFF pay for it? And no, skipping vacation does not compute, tried it last year got very close to burnout.
Cheers.