Kotlin Conf Super Early Bird Pricing <https://kotl...

# announcements

[leodeleon]

Kotlin Conf Super Early Bird Pricing
https://kotlinconf.com/registration/

[Czar]

and several times that for the visa + tickets 😄 😿

[nfrankel]

depends for who
but having done that recently in not-so-visa-friendly countries
i feel you 🤗

[leodeleon]

@Czar If you have the american visa you can apply for a travel authorization for 7 CAD

[Czar]

Good to know, thanks. US visa is a bit easier, for CA visa I'd have to travel to a neighboring country, at least US can be done locally. But still too expensive and troublesome.

[leodeleon]

With the electronic travel authorisation you don't need a visa for Canada

[leodeleon]

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/visit-canada/eta.html

[Czar]

Thanks for the link, looks like I'll need a visa, not an eTA, Georgia is in the list of visa-required countries.

[nfrankel]

@leodeleon eta is only allowed for some countries

[nfrankel]

(like esta for us)

[Mike]

Personally, I find it 'annoying' all the people commenting on it being in Canada. For those of us in NA, it's the first time we might be able to attend. I don't recall seeing a bunch of comments when it was where it was the last 2 years...

Conferences move around, and we live in a global world. But unfortunately we can't move freely everywhere yet. Would I have required a Visa to go to the last 2 places? Don't know, and would complain about the airfare first 😉

[Czar]

The problem is that NA countries have quite restrictive visa policies, whereas EU/Schengen is much easier. I would agree with you @Mike if the only problem was airfare. And I would also complain if it was in UK, again because of the visa.
I feel that it is important to give feedback about such things. And I feel that it is better done publicly, so others may join in.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for people from NA who got the opportunity to visit KConf and it was not my intention to annoy you.

[Mike]

Sure, and I'll calm down as well. It's tough in this world, and unfortunately doesn't appear to be getting any better.

I'm hoping I can arrange to get there this year (I'm in Toronto, so it's only a 6 hour drive). Look forward to the hallway track, as that's the most valuable/exciting portion of any conference. It's also nice to see the presentations live, but I'm very happy/impressed that Jetbrains provides both the live stream, and publishes the talks very quickly.

[Luca Clemente Gonzalez]

Oh my god why this is so expensive? Real question here, I don’t know how the infrastructure is, foods/beverage and everything. Someone can tell me about expenses they had last year?

[Mike]

I thought I saw it was 300 Euros last year for early bird.

It's $340 CAD, which is currently 231 Euros. So seems like it's noticeably less. Am I mistaken?

[Mike]

Sorry, just saw 25% VAT... So 289 Euro. So still less.

[Luca Clemente Gonzalez]

Don’t know, just arrived. Seems expansive for me but maybe it’s not. I never went to a conference as big

[Mike]

For a 2-day conference, that's not bad. Conferences are expensive to run properly. Venues and catering are expensive. Think about all the A/V they need to provide both a livestream, and videos after. I hope/assume they're paying for speakers to attend as well. So the costs add up.

Take a look at other developer conferences, and you'll see similar costs for something at this level. Spring One Platform was likely at least this much.

[nfrankel]

as a speaker, I was not paid last year
(but I was expensed)

[Mike]

Sorry, mis-spoke. When I said 'paid', I actually meant 'accommodation and entry' as a minimum payment. And ideally some portion of transportation. So expensed is a much better word choice.

[nfrankel]

no worries 🙂

[Czar]

I was hoping to make it this year for the first time, and I would have if it would've been in EU again, alas... Maybe I should work on becoming a speaker for the next year, just to be sure 😄

[Mike]

Yes, it doesn't matter where they choose, does it. For me, it was the opposite 😉 I would have liked the chance to attend the last 2 times but couldn't because of where it was. Now that it's close, I have a chance.

But yes, being a speaker is a good idea... Good luck.

[gildor]

A bit ofttopic, but I actually found that US Visa is more friendly and faster then Shengen (at least from Singapore), both have similar size forms and list of documents, but US is mostly electronic, doesn't require print a box of papers and approved immediately on visit to the embassy (also require only one visit, they will send your passport back with delivery service).
Maybe rejection rate is higher, hard to tell from personal experience of course.

[Czar]

For us (in Georgia) US takes at least a month, usually longer, reject rate is quite high with sometimes untraceable reason, like people with good jobs who have positive travel history, including EU, could just get rejected without any specified reason.

[gildor]

Standard Shengen (without some regional simplifie) also 2 weeks (Netherlands and Denmark, both approved in 2 or 3 weeks for me). For US In Singapore it usually a few days before you get a free slot for the interview and you will get answer right after interview

But yeah, rejection is another story of course