Playing devil's advocate....do people realize how much other tech events cost? hundreds and even a couple of thousands of dollars.

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As someone who has volunteered at WordCamps for many years and someone who has organized other (non-WP related) events...Sometimes it seems some things are a waste.

Lunch, why not go out just print out a list of restaurants in the area of the location of WordCamp. I remember one time, the lunch as it's main component was rice wrapped in some kind of seaweed crap, I was vomiting most of the night. As a resident of Toronto, when I see people coming from out of city or country, I want them to discover the food diversity of Toronto. So much food waste occurs at WordCamps.
T-shirts, I love them, but there should be an option to not have a t-shirt, less costs, right? less costs = lower prices?

For WordCamps that were on weekends, Saturday was day 1, Sunday was day 2, Saturday night was the after party event. I wonder, how many attendees actually attend it.

So many tech events do fancy things just for the sake of doing it. I got food poisoning from the food provided at a WordCamp I attended a few years ago in Europe. After vomiting that night, every year after that, I just went out and looked around for a food place to eat.