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There's a maths conference coming up and the whole thing amounts to about $1K, which is not the problem. I'm not going to be presenting, and I'm just going to be attending. I am planning to go next year to present a project I've currently started. Is it worth going this year?

Thanks!

Turra
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Academic conferences are pretty good to make networking between the participants. If you are looking for some collaboration into your project, maybe it could be a great idea to attend.

user3865772
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I actually asked a colleague about this last week, and her advice was to only go to conferences where one is presenting, which makes sense to me. Networking effects are greatest if you have a chance to get up in front of people, talk for a while, and give people a reason to talk and ask questions of you.

Possibly this may be variable depending on how outgoing your personality is. In my case I've gone to several educational conferences locally (not presenting) and I'm almost always frustrated coming away from them.

Daniel R. Collins
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    Networking is more about existing networks than personality. Meeting random people in the same field is probably not a good networking opportunity, as there is no particular reason for staying in contact afterwards. Meeting the collaborators of your collaborators is already a much better idea. – Jouni Sirén May 29 '16 at 18:21