On acceptance rates and flagship conferences

There's been a lot of back and forth on ways of increasing attendance at STOC, and in our wonderful theory way, all of this has happened in a universe unencumbered by the presentation of actual data.

I thought I'd dig up statistics on what exactly goes on at a number of major conferences in different areas in computer science. My idea was to take some of the major areas in the field, identify their flagship conference (or one of two as the case may be), and compile statistics on acceptance rates, attendance, and general conference activities.

The areas I considered (with main conference in parentheses) were

• databases (SIGMOD)
• machine learning (ICML)
• operating systems (SOSP)
• networking (SIGCOMM)
• architecture (ISCA)
• graphics (SIGGRAPH)

and the results I got were interesting (all data that I compiled can be found in this spreadsheet: feel free to add other areas, or update numbers, as you see fit). Where I could, I tried to get a sense of attendance/acceptance rates from either asking people or looking at published numbers for recent years: the ACM DL has acceptance rates for many of the above. Information on conference activities were taken from the most recent year I could get data for (usually 2010 or 2009). The main points:

1. All of the listed conferences had attendance in the 500-600 range (except ISCA with average attendance of 400, and SIGGRAPH with 2000+ in the research side). So they are definitely conferences with attendance that STOC would like to mimic. 
2. Acceptance rates varied, but most were below 20% (ICML being the exception at 25%). STOC is at 28% or so
3. Number of papers accepted varied widely (23 for SOSP, 150 for ICML). I find this particularly interesting: it would seem that attendance correlates more with the perception of being 'flagship' than the actual number of papers accepted.
4. Most conferences had long lists of colocated workshops. The smallest number was SIGCOMM last year with 5, and others had many more. STOC had none.
5. Tutorials were variable: some places had many (SIGGRAPH had 27) and some had none. STOC had 3.
6. With the exception of ISCA last year, all the conferences had significant poster sessions, either consisting of all papers accepted, or as a separate track with many posters. STOC had none.
7. The conferences all had other activities: demos, industrial tracks, works in progress or other such things (ISCA being the exception). STOC had none. 
8. Durations varied between 4 and 6 days (including the initial day). Most had 5. STOC is 4.

To me, there are two things that stand out from this.

1. The number of papers accepted does not appear to make a difference to the attendance. SOSP happens once every two years, and accepts 23-25 papers, and gets 500 attendees !! ICML gets a similar number of attendees with 150 papers accepted each year. 
2. There are a TON of activities at these conferences. Indeed, I think ICALP and ESA match them in terms of level of activity, but certainly not STOC. I've been a proponent of satellite events around a conference to increase attendance, and the STOC/EC/CCC colocation does seem to have helped. I'm also intrigued by the idea of colocating SoCG with STOC. 

You may draw your own conclusions...

p.s for the legions of readers who will start protesting that these communities are much larger than the theory community, I will merely point out that almost no one in this discussion thinks that the theory community is 300 strong: the question is more about getting the rather large theory community to show up in force for STOC.

Update:  Michael Mitzenmacher has a post up listing specific logistical issues that come up with expanding the set of activities at a conference. He points out that if we decide to go to multiple satellite events (whether as separate events or whatever), we'll have to adjust to a much greater degree of organizational commitment up front, as well no small amount of 'attitude adjustment'. For anyone who's ever attended a business meeting, this is a scary thought :)