Dear All, Please be more choosy when making decision on going to a conference.<\/p>\n
C<\/span><\/span>onferences have been held since the early days of academia. But their size has changed dramatically. The intimate gatherings of academics from a specific field have now been replaced with mega conferences, frequently featuring 1,000 participants or more. Stockholm\u00a0World Water Week<\/a>, which brings together scholars and practitioners, counts more than 3,000 participants.<\/p>\n These gatherings are fancier than ever. Academic conferences used to be in universities. Yet the last annual meeting of the\u00a0American Association of Geographers<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest geography conference, was in the Sheraton Boston, a four-star venue. Many now also feature elaborate social programmes. Those who attend World Water Week must choose whether the cocktail reception on Monday night, the royal banquet on Wednesday night or the \u201cmingle and dance\u201d on Thursday night is the conference\u2019s main see-and-be-seen event.<\/p>\n