Conferences during economic downturns
It is now official that we have been in a recession since November 2007. Unlike recent recessions, this one is longer than most in the past decade.
What does it mean for the Computer Vision community?
During an economic downturn, there will be normal consequences such as job loss. That's expected. For this community, this recession will also affect the technical events such as conferences and workshops. My prediction is that attendance will be lower as tighter travel budgets keep folks from traveling. Furthermore, I suspect a reduction in the number of corporate sponsors as companies are thinking twice about funding. The figure below shows the trend for Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conferences over the past few years.
It should be noted that while two dots make a line, six points on a graph do not make a trend. The number of sponsors shown in the figure do not show the level of contribution by each sponsor. However, given the difficulty in fundraising for non-profits, it is easy to conclude that these few years would be a difficult time to get conference sponsorship monies.
I speak from experience that finding corporate sponsors in difficult times is very challenging, and I equate the task to "pulling teeth". So the next time you notice that your conference this year is not serving the best food selection during breaks, please understand that the economic downturn might be the reason. It is a very indirect relationship, but it exists. The real question is when will we get better food selection?
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As of May 24, there is yet another corporate sponsor for CVPR 2009:
As of May 10, there is yet another CVPR 2009 sponsor:
This brings the sponsorship numbers back to 2008 levels. We should be glad that the CVPR organization committee remained vigilant in obtaining sponsorship monies. It is also a sign that corporate sponsors were able to step up during tough economic situations.
As of April 19, there are nine corporate sponsors. The three new sponsors since my last post are
With this, the total number of sponsors are close to last year's numbers. It would be interesting to see if the total amount of dollars donated are similar. Perhaps this is a good sign that the economy is picking up (at least, industry is seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel)?
As of March 11, there are six corporate sponsors for CVPR 2009:
This follows the trend line on the graph that I posted earlier. Most importantly, I would like to commend these sponsors for their support during the economic downturn.