COMMON-5 days/4 days

It's idiotic to expect people to stay at a conference until 5 PM on Friday.
They want to avoid the Friday night travel crush and get home at a
reasonable hour.  A four-day conference is still long but at least there's a
possibility of salvaging a day (Friday) if the conference is held in a city
with good airline service.

There are political and operational ramifications to attending a conference
"all week".  COMMON may be "business" but the attendees' organizations don't
cease operations while their IT staff is out.

There is a staggering amount of material available to cover and a wide range
of interests represented at any IT-related conference; no single conference
could ever cover it all.

Most of us do some work from home and virtually no software developers go
on-site to develop.  So what's the attraction in traipsing to Nashville or
Chicago?  Why doesn't COMMON supplement fleshed-based conferences with
technology-based conferences?