I m also agree that too much participants may be hamper in gaining knowledge but then we should be targeted only to our interest field. Although current trends of larger size participants is not due to people really so interested but by this way they got relaxation and money from their parent institute and that they utilizes in visiting places,,,,,,

It is true that large conferences are fairly overwhelming in the sense that there is so much going on at the same time and everything has to go fast. When there are too many people, it is difficult to organise activities so that the participants can bond socially. When I went to large conferences I found myself mainly staying with people from my own lab or people that I already knew.

I for sure would recommend smaller, human scale conferences where everyone eats together, everyone sits in the same room. I found these much more interesting for me. Also because the topic of smaller conferences is usually more specific and therefore closer to your own scientific interests.

On the other hand, in these big conferences, because they are so big, they encompass a larger scientific field and there is a lot going on. That is also a good thing because you may see things that you may not have been to see by your self. You meet people outside your field and their vision, the objects they study and the methods they use might give you new ideas or insight in your own field.

So as a rule, I try to mainly go to small conferences but I also force myself to go to larger ones every now and again.

Conferences which has a large number of delegates with huge quantity of presentation may be termed as big conference. This type of conferences has many disadvantages :

1. delegates get less time for their presentation, some time 10-15 minutes or even less. Almost rarely get time for useful discussions.

2.Because of a large numbers of parallel sessions, some time become difficult to decide and one has to loose interesting presentation also.

3. Arrangement of the seminar become difficult and require big man power, money and infrastructure.

4. Big seminar require bulky seminar registration fees. Many delegate just forget to attend because of this.

5. Preparation of Proceeding volume of seminar also become problem and takes years, and matter become interest less or out dated

As most of us scientists have become extremely specialised, large conferences with more than 10 parallel sessions have become typical. This is not a bad thing as such. However as all of the previous contributors have mentioned the anonymous individuals in such conferences feel lost in such an event even if the event is very well organized.

In order to promote scientific interaction smaller conferences which a more familiar atmosphere and focused on specific subjects should be preferred (at least that is my own opinion).

Besides the scientific aspect one should not forget that conferences have become a business. The more delegates the more money to be made. There is in fact for a given location a break even point beyond which money is made. For scientifc associations this has become one important method of refinancing.

In my opinion scientific conferences are more and more considered not only as a scientific event but also a business and social events; this means big companies will use these conferences to promote their products and show what they are doing in the specific field of the conference, biggest conference means more money collected from participants and sponsors and as a social event, increase the possibility to bring more people together increasing the number of professionals that you can meet in one single event.

However, big conferences from the scientific point of view are not the best modality that can be used to promote deep discussions about specific topics among the participants. The presentation in big conferences of new ideas, the outcome of new research or the development of new research in specific areas by the speakers are very difficult because the time assigned to each presentation is very small (10-15 minutes). During this time it is very difficult for the speakers to present its paper in a clear and understandable manner to all participants. At the same time, the time allocated for questions and comments are also very small given very little chance to the speakers to interact with the participants.

At the same time, big conferences mean a lot of speakers, a lot of topics to be presented and a lot of parallel sessions running at the same time, making almost impossible to be present in all sessions you would like to attend.

It seems to me that smaller conferences with less speakers but with bigger time for presentation of papers, less topics to be included in the agenda and with a smaller number of parallel sessions are more products from the scientific point of view.

Jorge, Thanks. your point of view and my is similar in this subject.

regards.

Dear Vivendra. Yes, we have similar opinions about big scientific conferences. I do hope that other colleagues share our point of views about big scientific conferences.

Thanks all for the comments so far. I think we all agree mostly that from the science perspective, especially in a specific discipline, smaller meetings are better. Bigger meetings do add breadth of content but I find that there is little coordination across the sessions for different disciplines, and often they are physically separated in the venue, so that even if a person wants to see presentations in multiple fields, it ends up being quite difficult. The business issues Jorge and Frank mentioned are also good points I hadn't really thought of. Societies need the revenue. I accept that. And there is nothing wrong with businesses using these meetings to improve their business; but in this case, I feel they should be paying a greater amount of the costs of the meetings rather than the academic delegates.

Over my career, I must have attended 50+ international conferences of all sizes and shapes. Early on, even before choosing my PhD reseach subject, I attended a couple of very large conferences, and I think this was helpful for making career choices.

Nowadays, I feel that "less is definitely more" when it comes to conference sizes. My ideal conference is about 300 international participants, only 2 parallel sesions, with plenty of time, space and a glass of wine for the poster sessions. TV monitors outside the lecture rooms, showing the ongoing presentation inside is a smart, simple innovation making it easier to avoid disruption of ongoing talks, allowing people to enter the lecture rooms at the correct time.

Really, it is a difficult question. It mainly depend of the field of investigation of the concrete researcher and the common atmosphere of the conference. For instance, Annual Conf. of the European Geosciences Union includes usually 13,000 - 14,000 participants and about 500 sessions. However, warmest atmosphere of this conference and goodorganization enable (at least for me) to participate with reports at 4-5 sessions and to hear presentations in other 9-10 sessions.