I think this is something worth calculating, but I think we should consider that there are several people, who, for various visa-related issues, don’t make it to UK/US conferences or who feel less incentive to travel due to other reasons (for instance if you have a full-time job outside of EA it can be tricky to ask for a day off at times) so it can make it seem like conference-goer EAs are mostly from the UK and the US. I don’t know how seriously has this option been considered before. While I know these two countries have bigger EA populations, I wonder if traveling to a cheaper country and having the same conference conditions is better than traveling within the same country and having fewer resources available. I don’t know if in terms of distance traveled someone from Utah would care significantly whether the conference is in SF/DC or Mexico City, or whether someone from England/Wales cares whether the conference is in London or Porto/Riga/Rome/Prague. I live in London and I feel like there are several cheap flights to other European countries from here, and flights within Europe are generally affordable at times.
I think this is something worth calculating, but I think we should consider that there are several people, who, for various visa-related issues, don’t make it to UK/US conferences or who feel less incentive to travel due to other reasons (for instance if you have a full-time job outside of EA it can be tricky to ask for a day off at times) so it can make it seem like conference-goer EAs are mostly from the UK and the US. I don’t know how seriously has this option been considered before. While I know these two countries have bigger EA populations, I wonder if traveling to a cheaper country and having the same conference conditions is better than traveling within the same country and having fewer resources available. I don’t know if in terms of distance traveled someone from Utah would care significantly whether the conference is in SF/DC or Mexico City, or whether someone from England/Wales cares whether the conference is in London or Porto/Riga/Rome/Prague. I live in London and I feel like there are several cheap flights to other European countries from here, and flights within Europe are generally affordable at times.