What I heard is that the number of paper submissions was down by 30%. - Paulo Nuin

can anyone tell me why the espresso machine at the convention center breaks down every moment precisely when i need it most? - Shannon McWeeney

Paulo: So is the amount of free t-shirts. Conincidence ? ;) - Daniel Jurczak

we paid $435/head for food and coffee, the conference center+AV+MCC related costs amounted to another about $180/head. you do the math how much of your money went into food. totally with you on your surprise, but it is actually the same for most places in the world we went to; some were much worse than toronto, others much better (e.g. vienna). - espresso machine: another one of those things: i for one need good espresso: you guys have no clue what the MCC would have charged for 'second cup' quality .. - Burkhard Rost

In Detroit there was no included food and in some days there was almost no place close to the GM Centre with good food (if you call Detroit's greektown a place that you can get decent food ...) and the registration price was adequate. Why include food in the registration when some people cannot afford it? Like me, unsupported post-doc living in Toronto. No way I am shelling 775 (700 reg + annual fee) plus whatever the BOSC costed and eat moderately bad food. - Paulo Nuin

Does the chairman think high conference profits will encourage even more people to come next time? - Duncan Hull

The ISMB is a community effort and the organizers thereby responsible to the community to organize a financially viable meeting. I am glad that Burkhard is as bold as to discuss this issues in public. Organizing a conference is a multi-optimization problem that should have higher weights on scientific content, adequate conference rooms and WLAN (in that order) than food quality, which were met at this years' ISMB for sure. - Roland Krause

Some conferences do not provide lunch at all (e.g. the genetics congress in Berlin in July), but for Stockholm, this is probably not an option (fair ground). - Roland Krause

IMO, good conferences do make a profit, always tough for scientific ones. But the logistics and experience better be worth it then. - Deepak Singh

no lunch is what i have been proposing since years; will become stronger on this! for Stockholm: too late (and yes too difficult); for Boston 2010: we already signed the contract including food, however, we will try our best to get out of it; for 2011 in vienna: difficult - upside: that's perceived as "good food" - Burkhard Rost

profit: half of the ISCB annual budget originates from the ISMB profit, we need $180K from ISMB to survive; we now run ISMB at an incredibly ambitious low budget saving wherever we can, this is one reason why Toronto will create high profit/participant - mostly due to the fact that we cut on organizing costs. still the major issue remains that we pay for the facilities that could welcome 1000 more participants and with every new participant we would profit more. put differently: we have to grow or to shrink - Burkhard Rost

Was that "paper submissions down by 30%" true? $550 - 900 per person. 1000 attendee. Let's say... 30% on foods: $300 X 1000 = $300,000 for lunch and matrix party. Foods must be delivered to the wrong place. - Kuan-Ting Lin

see our paper in PLoS CB on ISMB 2008 about numbers, although the following may not be in there: vienna proceedings submission=492, toronto: 292; ok; NOW please realize that this has absolutely NOTHING to do with costs! One issue: we had over 180 talks at ISMB 2008; 48 were from proceedings=less than 1/3. now the money: food/head was over $400 NOT 30%!!! there were over 1400 participants and the food was way more than 2* your estimate; matrix party was cheap! food & rent for Liberty Grand was a lot. - Burkhard Rost

Hey folks, ISCB almost died from less profitable meetings in Brazil and Australia...give Burkhard a break. I like his openness. Yes, the food could have been better (the box lunches at the Member's meeting during lunchtime were really good!), but I didn't see enough affordable restaurants on Front Street or near the CN Tower to handle us all. I do agree that when possible, letting us fend for ourselves is a better option. Sounds like that not possible in Stockholm, definitely possible at the Hynes in Boston. - John Greene

In Vienna (that is if it is again at the Vienna International Center) it is not that easy to get to food. I mean there is nothing in the immediate vicinity. Additionally as Burkhard already mentioned the food there was actually quite fine. Anyway, i appreciate the openness of the discussion here. - Daniel Jurczak