You know, in many other conferences…speakers get paid.

I have spoken at something called PodCamp Toronto for years (before panda). I have volunteered at WCTO. I don’t know why I never submitted a speaking thing for WCTO. Has nothing to do with getting paid or not.

Not everyone can financially afford to travel to San Diego. The farthest US territory or whatever that I can think of is Alaska or Hawai’i.

From Honolulu to San Diego is 7 hours. I thought it would be Honolulu to LAX then whatever to San Diego.

So here are some expenses for someone from Honolulu.

Drive/bus to HNL, HNL-SAN, SAN-hotel. Hotel-WCUS. WCUS-Hotel, Hotel-WCUS, WCUS-Hotel, Hotel-WCUS, WCUS-Hotel, Hotel to SAN, SAN-HNL, HNL-home.

Remember 3 days of WCUS? Hotel to WCUS local, then back to hotel each day.

WCTO, the first 2-3 years was in Scarborough (my area in Toronto) the rest were either downtown or the other side of Toronto.

How many people can afford to do all that? There are a lot of people that can’t afford a thousand dollars plus out of their pocket.

Let’s take me. I live in Toronto, Canada and both Canada and USA have great flights.

Taking bus from Toronto to San Diego is 2 days, 20 hours, 5 different buses. So bus is out. That is 68 hours of travel. Not counting in between buses.
Train is 5 trains, 3 1/2 days……no.

I could get up and stretch on Amtrak I guess, over Greyhound.

Bus: $660 USD
Train: $700 USD

Plus the meals in those 2-3 days, which will be more expensive.

Driving is 40 hours 47m. All these times above are the travel, not including the breaks, meals, toilet and sleeping times.

Airplane is 8 hours-10 hours depending on the route. $600+.

Funny thing, Toronto-LAX/SAN is a lot more expensive than if I were to drive to Buffalo then do Buffalo-LAX/SAN. One in international, the other is local.

Anyways…….

WCUS CAN pay for at least travel and lodging………..you know that sponsor money? Guess what you can do to use that for as well?

Can sponsors sponsor a speaker? You bet.

Can WCorganizers allow speakers to present in an in-person via Zoom, Skype or whatever else?………YES.

I unofficially sponsored tickets to both PCTO and WCTO. Even though they are free.

I sponsored attendees. I ran a contest sort of. They had to fill a form telling me why they should be chosen. I read them all and picked.

I have seen, I think in WCs in the US. “Sponsor my trip to WC(whatever)”.

People can do that too.

Yes I read that MasterWP post by the way and agree to it.