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Rather than run a single event during one week, run several coordinated events thoughout a week. For example, two days could be a hackathon at a cheaper location, one day could be an un-conference (or several project-focused un-conferences), and the last two days are a more expensive user/business conference at a nice hotel. Each day or event would be targeted at a specific audience (developers, specific project community, enterprise users, etc.).
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Question the Speaker reembursements
ApacheCon is one of the very few conferences that pay speakers expenses. By removing this, we would be able to invite more speakers and it would no longer be necessary to look at clustering multiple talks from one speaker to reduce costs.
As an addition, the PRC (ex TAC) could offer some compensation for the speakers who wouldn't be able to make it because they would have to pay the costs from their own pocket.
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Leave Things Alone
ApacheCon works. Why are we trying to change it?