lift or transmediale?

– 27.12.2005

should i go to lift or to transmediale early february 2006?
i can’t seem to decide…. argh.

lift. life, ideas, futures. together. february 2-3 2006, in geneva

despite the ridiculous title this little conference could be quite nice. some interesting people will speak – cory doctorow (EFF, boingboing), regine debatty (we-make-money-not-art) and hugh mcleod (gaping void) to name just a few – and the program looks quite tempting.
the pricing is pissing me off though, totally! 300.- (190.- euro) swiss francs for a 2-day conference?
(they also did the 295.- thing! okay, better than 299.- but why not call 300.- 300.-?)
i mean come on, guys…
why do swiss conference organisers instantly go for the top pricing range instead of starting a conference with affordable, non-elitist pricing, building a reputation over a few years and then maybe later start to charge more?
geneva is close enough from bern to make day-trips. and it might be a chance to do some networking with the blogger scene from the french part of switzerland… hmmm

transmediale. festival for art and digital culture., february 3. – 7. 2006 in berlin

i have not been to the transmediale festival in a few years, this years conference theme, humour, is quite interesting i think. there are no details out on the program yet. they will be published 1.1.
a festival pass costs 70.- euro – inculding the art shows; 80.- if you want the club pass as well. now thats a price i am more than willing to pay for 5 days of jampacked programming.
but its in berlin which will mean having to find accomodation and eating in restaurants and getting there.
hmmm…

i hope i won’t postpone this decision too long to have it made for me. only 100 places left for lift…

Tags: berlin, conference, february2006, geneva, germany, switzerland

About Jan Zuppinger

Jan Zuppinger has been writing this blog since 2002. He likes to grow vegetables. He likes to eat them too. He has opinions on everything, but sadly no one cares. Jan Zuppinger is not joking, just joking, he is joking, just joking, he's not joking. *click.

Laurent Haug

Please go to transmediale, I really don’t need people that are p**** on our work because we refused to give them a free entry.

Think about it, read the articles written about our event, check conference prices around the world, do something to jumpstart the understanding process of what organizing a conference WITHOUT any public money (Hint: I am NOT talking about Transmediale) means.

For your info, the top pricing of conference is 4400$ (www.ted.com) and LIFT, despite being in a more expensive country and covering more expenses, costs less than Les Blogs (Paris) or Reboot.

Happy networking in Berlin!
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

i really think your prices are simply too high. if none of my friends can afford it, that says it all.

you SHOULD have taken public funding, is what i think. this is how prices become non-elitist. we don’t all work for banks!
in organising anything you can go the elitist way or the non-elitist one. its a choice.
which is exactly why we plan to fund the swissblogawards by public money, because it needs to be accessible to all. as should any form of information, conference or other.

and btw. everybody i spoke with about lift thinks that your prices are very high and that there should be at the very least a special price for bloggers who are willing to cover the event.

so, instead of telling me you don’t want me there, you should be grateful that i honestly tell the truth instead of playing into the “politics” of kissing butts left and right.
http://www.homemade-labor.ch/weblog miss.gunst

ahoi jan,
yes, I would also recommend to go to Berlin. so we’ll have a chance to meet

seriously: if you are interested in electronic culture, music, art, networking, that will be the better place anyway (including clubbing @ Maria am Ostbahnhof).
[sure, going to LIFT/Geneva might be interesting, too - however, it is a matter of fact that among free lance journalists, artists or others with professional background in culture there won't be too many who can afford to join the event. and M. Hug's comment suggests to me they simply are not interested to have people like us there.]
http://www.ifeedyou.com/blog Jerome

Don’t have the whole background of this in my hands but if money was the only problem I have the feeling that a trip+hotel to Berlin would cost much more than going to Geneva. Maybe I am wrong…
http://www.homemade-labor.ch/weblog miss.gunst

@Jerome
sure not. Berlin is the cheapest capital in Western Europe (in terms of money you’d have to spend for food, rent, hotels etc.), and you will easily find also private places to stay; not to mention the flights you get from zurich or basel to berlin and back again (sometimes between 55 and 99 euros). but I do not think these additional costs are the point in this case. it is more about: what happens when the very same people who are creating, producing, providing and contributing to the culture conferences like the ones mentioned in Jan’s article are dealing with cannot afford joining these conferences (except for when being invited as speakers 8-))?
http://www.ifeedyou.com/blog Jerome

> Berlin is the cheapest capital in Western Europe

You wrote it! And Geneva maybe one of the most expensive. That’s maybe why (public funding apart) a conference can only be more expensive in Geneva than in Berlin but what do I know since I have never organized a conference
I am glad such an event will take place in Switzerland, maybe next year I will go to Berlin, and I will wait to meet Jan!
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

@ miss.gunst: thanx for finishing my sentence there. i guess i was kinda lazy, but this IS exactly what i meant, i am always very suspicious of events who exclude the people they in a sense talk about. it seems absurd. an elitist event talking about an essentially bottom-up phenomenon like blogging seems to be really missing the point somehow. interstingly enough cory always seems to get invited to these. but regine will also be in berlin, so pheew.
and i am also pleased to read that you were equally – whats the word i am looking for here – rattled by the arrogance of monsieur haug’s response. they really don’t seem to need us there…

@ jerome: well surely we will meet before that @ swiss blog award 5.5.2006 in bienne/biel
http://blog.gassert.ch Hannes

Pieco: Ich würde eigentlich gern beide Veranstaltungen heimsuchen – es lebe der (Easy-)Jetset! Komm doch auch, ich schmuggle dich unter meiner SuperTarnKappe(tm) rein!
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

@ hannes: das würdest du für mich tun??? *schmelz* ich habs glaub leider bereits verspielt mit dem haug… hmmm
Laurent Haug

Read my lips: “I really don’t need people that are p**** on our work because we refused to give them a free entry.”

You recognized yourself in that. I made my point.

I won’t let people use their blogs to retaliate on us because we refused to do what they want.

I of course never talked about excluding “free lance journalists, artists, others with professional background in culture” or anybody else.

Time to move on I think.
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

oh lord, how did i recognize myself in that? the arrogance is killing me. and i also rest my case…
S

Some perspective: if you own a functioning computer, have an internet connection, and have enough time to attend any conferences, you are all already among the elite in Europe and among the very wealthiest of the world. This bickering about which conference is more elite than another seems a bit absurd.

Within the context of other similar conferences, LIFT seems incredibly underpriced, especially given the costs in Geneva.
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

@ S: 1. anonymous post??? hmmm. i 100% agree with you. 100%. but it is also the kill-all argument. i mean, considering this fact you mention here why discuss anything at all?

@ laurent: just a short sum up of my point of view:

about 10 days ago i received an email from someone involved with lift06, i can’t remember who it was from, (was it from laurent?), because i deleted said email since. anyway, in that email someone aked me to please mention lift06 on my blog, because they were having trouble to make the event known in the german part of switzerland.

as usually is the case i went ahead and looked at the website in question, checking out the program (looking nice) and the prices (woops), because i don’t just blindly plug stuff because it is swiss, or would you?

when i saw the pricing i sent an email to info@lift06.org asking if there was a possibility to get accredited as a blogger or to receive a reduced price of entry. i received an email back from laurent telling me that, no there are no special prices.

i also spoke with a few people about the event and all agreed that the price was rather high. someone suggested that there should be a special price for bloggers willing to cover the event. and i agreed.

naturally, when i then mention lift06 on my blog i include the fact that i think the price is very high. i think i have every right to do so.

from there to imply that i did this to “retaliate on my blog” and to use sentences like “read my lips”, an expression which btw. came to infamous celebrity when president bush sen. used it, is a bit harsh not to say arrogant imho. it has nothing to do with my personal request for accreditation being rejected. it is my opinion that the price is way too high, and that because of it many people i would like to see at that conference won’t be able to go.
S

Not at all intended as a kill-all argument. Sorry if it came across that way. Why discuss anything at all? Because there are so many important things to discuss – even among the ‘elite’ like you and me. There are still plenty of important themes in this thread (public vs. private funding for conferences like these, pricing structures for blogging coverage of conferences, etc.). The ‘elite’ theme is simply the least interesting for me.
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

@ laurant: sorry about having to delete your earlier comment here, but i think i should be allowed to decide, whether i want my email adress to appear online or not. even with [dot] and [at]. i also think it’s quite tricky to post someone’s emails like you just did without their consent. don’t get me wrong, i can fully stand behind its content. yet somehow it “feels” like a privacy rights infringement.
what you said is partially true, and it explains why i don’t have your email anymore. you did send it to that yahoo group, not to me. sorry about that. yet you still seem to imply, that i posted all this out of spite, and not because i genuninly think that your price is nuts.
well, i do!
as said in my email to you and also here on my blog. there. my opinion. transparently communicated all along. would you have prefered an email trying to kiss your ass to try and get in for free? i am starting to guess so…
so please do feel free to move on, laurant.
however, this is my blog, so i won’t move on…
if you catch my driftee…

@ S: (still anonymous?) i agree those are interesting themes. but it is my opinion, that especially the public funing or not question very strongly ties in with teh elitist one. because in the end financial realities make the day. if i can’t afford something it’s kinda pointless discussing if it’s right or not, because i can’t afford it…
Roger B.

You’ll end up with much more respect from your readers if you don’t erase comments that are anyway republished somewhere else on the web.
http://pieceoplastic.com zup[ping]er

i almost never delete a comment. not even comments by trolls, and believe me there have been a few over the last 3 years. and my “readers”, if there is such a thing, know that.
reasons why i delete comments are: racist stuff, openly mysogonoist and haetful stuff, publication of private data.

i don’t know about you, but i have two types of email adresses: private email adresses, for all my personal and business contacts, and then i have semi-public email adresses, for all potentially spammy stuff, like registrations, blog comments, etc, and that one is in fact filling up with spam.
now if someone publishes my private email address in a comment here on my blog, that for me is one of the reasons to erase a comment. sorry, but that is totally unacceptable.
i don’t know where you come from, roger, but there is such a thing as privacy rights here in switzerland. so if this comment containing my private email adress has been published anywhere else, please let me know. because i will consider taking legal action.
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lift or transmediale?

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