<p>Some of us are lucky enough to attend marvelous conventions, made with love by amazing people. Great events with top-notch speakers, incredible venues, and amazing parties.</p>
<p>These conferences are run with huge contributions from volunteers, and financial support from sponsors, providing top-notch events at affordable prices.</p>
<p>But even then, they're not affordable for everyone.</p>
<p>We're building an alternative model: SquatConf.</p>
<p>SquatConf won't be your everyday conference, but we'll have good talks from amazing people. It'll be donation-based, and you'll get to contribute if you want to.</p>
<h2id="how-is-this-possible-">How is this possible?</h2>
<p>Conferences costs are huge, and ticket prices are often <ahref="http://2014.lxjs.org/about/">nowhere near the true per-attendee cost</a>, even for a non-profit conference.</p>
<p>Fancy venues, transporation, hotels and food are really nice perks to have, but…</p>
<p>You'll have a zero-cost conference made with love, but a little rougher around the edges.</p>
<h2id="where-and-when-">Where and when?</h2>
<p>November 15th 2014. A squat in Paris. For obvious reasons, we can't yet disclose where.</p>
<h2id="the-plan">The Plan</h2>
<p>We are a bunch of crazy programers that believe in anarchy and decentralised systems, conferences included.</p>
<p>We will provide a space, we will provide a context, some talks, and the rest will be up to you…</p>
<h2id="who-is-behind-this-">Who is behind this?</h2>
<p>The inception of SquatConf was at <ahref="http://2014.lxjs.org/">LXJS</a>. It was a great conference, and the organisation did an amazing job, and after the final day of the event we ended up with <ahref="https://github.com/dominictarr">dominictarr</a>, <ahref="https://github.com/joates">joates</a> and <ahref="https://github.com/gorhgorh">I</a> talking about autonomous self driving boats when this idea came to life. Now the idea matured and some folks (<ahref="https://github.com/mmalecki">mmalecki</a>, <ahref="https://github.com/nathan7">nathan7</a>, <ahref="https://github.com/no9">no9</a>, <ahref="https://github.com/substack">substack</a>, ...) are in the loop now.</p>
<h2id="okay-so-you-re-a-bunch-of-idealists-running-a-10-people-conference-in-a-dump-">Okay, so you're a bunch of idealists, running a 10-people conference in a dump.</h2>
<p>What you'll get out of SquatConf is in the end exactly what you want to put into SquatConf.</p>
