We are just putting the finishing touches on ProductCamp Utah, and with no profit and no paid speakers, it is still extremely expensive.
They're called "SMOFs." They run science fiction conventions. (Not "Star Trek" conventions but "science fiction" conventions - books.) And the conventions are not for profit membership organizations typically with hundreds or thousands of members attending over a weekend at a cost of a few tens of dollars each.
The SMOFs are generally willing to help others run conferences by giving them advice, doing (paid) consulting work, or even fully (paid) managing conferences. A great example is Expotech, who ran MacHack.
* SF cons don't usually provide food for all attendees, which is the big cost driver for tech cons. For PyCon 2011, catering was 54% of the budget.
* Tech cons mostly don't have to worry about people in costumes, keeping under-18s out of certain events, or as much rowdy late-night behaviour (e.g. room parties).
* Tech cons really, really have to worry about the WiFi network. Recording every presentation may also impose more A/V requirements.
Going to SMOFcon was somewhat useful to me, but the differences are significant.
Isn't the catering cost a catch-22? The only reason to expect food at a tech conference is because you (or more likely your employer) is paying out the wazoo for a conference ticket to begin with.
I'd be much more likely to go to a tech conference that was $99 and gave me no food than go to a tech conference that cost $500+ and was fully catered. I can take care of my own food needs for far less than $400 over the space of a couple of days.
If the conference has 500 or 1000 attendees, the hotel restaurant probably can't handle that many people, so there have to be several restaurants or a mall food court nearby, enough of them so that they don't get overwhelmed by the attendees. That rules out venues that aren't downtown, because suburbs may not have that density of restaurants within walking distance, but such central venues have more expensive room costs.
Another tradeoff: The lunch break would probably have to be 2 hours, because 1 hour is a bit tight for walking time + waiting for service + eating, which means less time for conference programming. Attendees like lots of programming, the more the better; in fact, PyCon attendees asked for breakfast as well as lunch, so it's easier to attend an early-morning event.
And the monetary risk of running an event is large, so like Hollywood film producers, you quickly stop wanting to tinker and try something new; it's safer to stick with a format that's worked in the past.
If a speaker is a "guest of honor" (say a major keynote) you should comp them their conference membership, and possibly cover their hotel room and travel (which you'd arrange). That's it.
No paid speakers. No "sponsors," either. Just members. Hundreds of conventions with a great many thousands upon thousands (potentially millions) of members make this work every year in sci-fi and the areas that have branched off from it like anime and comics.
Also remember in the scifi, anime, and comic con worlds, many of those people who offer to speak for free are doing it as a marketing expense. Nothing wrong with that, but it should be recognized because, depending on your conference, it can alter the flavor. We've been very explicit: no direct marketing.
The area ncdevcon.com (next week in Raleigh) started charging for tickets this year - a nominal $60 for 2 days - precisely because when it was free, people wouldn't show up on the day because they had no real investment.
For indieconf.com, we've charged - both for last year's even and this year's event - and are posting speakers/sessions well in advance so people know what they're getting.
There's room for all styles of events, certainly, and perhaps I have bit more invested emotionally than others, being an organizer myself, but the barcamp self-organizing doesn't always produce great results. This may also have something to do with geography as well, but I don't think anyone's done an actual study of barcamp attendee satisfaction around the globe. Maybe that's something you could add to lanyrd :)