TechEd might not be worth it for me

I've got to say that I agree with Sahil Malik on this one, but I'm going to chime in with a few extra cents.

• I get tired of the marketing.  If you want to market to me, show me code, don't futz around and talk about grandeous plans.  Too many of these shows don't show much or any code, just have a talking head for the sessions.
• TechEd is too big without enough focus.  It seems to have a little bit for everyone, but no good focus.
• I went to TechEd in Atlanta in 2001.  My goal was to meet people.  I think I went to four talks.  The value was in going to meet people and I was able to keep my expenses down. 
• I can get most (maybe even all) of the content online before the event occurs.  Why go and listen to someone talk about ADO.NET V2 when you can hear it on my podcasts? (plug, plug)
• The cost of the event is only a portion of the true cost.  Hotel, travel, and non-billable time must be factored in.  If you have someone to pay for you to go great, but lots of folks don't.
• Having spoken at a code camp, I think the idea of a set of talks on Saturday that are free to attend is a big advantage over hotels and travel of going to a TechEd or other big event.  Just last week, I went to Redmond to the VS Data Team's Software Design Review.  It was very valuable, much more so than going to a TechEd.

I'll say that I haven't been to a PDC.

Ok, so that's why I am not going to TechEd.  Your situation might be different.  So why should you go?  Well, it just might be that you don't have access to all of this techncial stuff.  It is very easy to use TechEd as a place to get a little bit of info about a lot of different technologies.

My $.02

Wally