At the end of the month we are having linux.conf.au (one of the best Linux conferences in the world) in Melbourne. Here is some quick advice for people who are attending:
If you have not yet booked a hotel then www.wotif.com is a good option to try, it’s a hotel booking web site that is aimed at last-minute bookings and offers significant discounts over the list price. A quick search on WotIf reveals that there are currently 5 hotels that are available for $140 per night or less for the time period of LCA. The rate listed is an approximation as the hotel may offer several rates for different types of rooms (it’s usually one of the cheapest options available from the hotel). I believe that some hotels don’t offer their rooms on WotIf until close to the day in question, so some more rooms may become available between now and the start of the conference. However the Australian Open [1] Tennis tournament ends on the 27th of January, if you plan to attend the LCA mini-confs then you will want to arrive on the 27th, so booking a hotel for that night at the last minute would be a risky strategy.
If you want to stay somewhere that is comfortable but not overly expensive then you might want to read my post about hotel apartments [2].
My post about public transport in Melbourne [3] has some information that can save you some money. One possibility to consider is that if you use 10 * 2 hour tickets and don’t completely use them up then you could sell them to locals. I would be happy to buy some partially used tickets for the full value of the unused part on the last day of the conference to save people wasting the unused value.
Note that my documents blog contains posts that will be updated whenever I have more information and the time to write it down (this blog is generally write-once). I will be updating the post about public transport significantly in future.