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I'm not sure this is on topic here, but probably can be best answered by this community, so I'm posting it as a soft-question.

Due to the pandemic, FOCS 2021 will be a virtual conference. Most conferences, when moving online, reduced the registration fee to some two digits number. At FOCS, however, the cheapest registration fee for grown-ups still starts at $600, without any reduction from the offline figures. Is there any justification for this?

domotorp
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    FOCS is an IEEE conference, and IEEE charges a lot of money to its conferences; this does not allow cheap fees. The same holds true for ACM conferences. – Gamow Jan 03 '22 at 10:07
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    @Gamow ACM STOC was $50, see my link in the question. – domotorp Jan 03 '22 at 10:23
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    I see, and I am surprised. I remember that SoCG (the geometry conference) moved away from ACM five or six years ago, and as a consequence the registration fees could be cut down by 50 percent. (They could not publish their proceedings anymore as ACM proceedings, and hence moved to Leibniz; this did not cause any damage to the conference.) – Gamow Jan 03 '22 at 11:13
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    SODA was insane as well (and the whole communication by SIAM was a fiasco). I am really puzzled by what's going on there. – Clement C. Jan 03 '22 at 14:28
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    The issue is likely how to cover unrecoverable conference expenses from the hotel. I believe IEEE and the organizing committee are working on it, but that is the latest I've heard. – Joshua Grochow Jan 03 '22 at 16:24
  • @Joshua Then they should put the registration on hold and say something on the webpage, no? – domotorp Jan 03 '22 at 19:38
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    @domotorp: I am not privy to those discussions, but surely they had a discussion about that and opted not to do anything yet. I would guess and hope that IF they are able to lower the rates, then they will refund anyone who has already registered at the higher rate. – Joshua Grochow Jan 03 '22 at 19:54
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    Update: https://twitter.com/yrabani/status/1478046039013834755 – Joshua Grochow Jan 04 '22 at 22:08
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    New update: https://twitter.com/IeeeTcmf/status/1479372834250100737?s=20 "An update on FOCS registration:

    1. The deadline for early registration is now Feb. 6, a day before the conference begins.

    2. In a few days there will be an update regarding the registration fees. One author for each contributed paper will have to register at current fees."

     – Clement C. Jan 07 '22 at 08:49
  • So it does stay 600, except perhaps for those who don't present a paper. I still don't fully understand why and it would be nice to know the explanation. – domotorp Jan 09 '22 at 19:47

1 Answers1

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This isn't an answer, but felt it was good to post here as a sort of announcement. Also, it makes the question at least a little bit moot for many people. [Making it CW so I don't get any points from people upvoting just b/c they're happy about the result :).]

While I think one author is still needed to register at the higher fee, attendee fees have been significantly reduced! They are now \$150 for non-members, \$125 for society members, \$100 for students, and \$70 for lifetime members. https://focs2021.cs.colorado.edu/registration/

Joshua Grochow
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