Periodically I get asked why there hasn't been a Smalltalk conference in NYC in a long time. It's not just me that answers "because of the expense" - Here's Joel Spolsky, explaining why they aren't having any of their Stack Overflow Dev Days events in the Big Apple

It s a particularly bad place to do tech conferences, too. Hotels are $600-$700 a night. Everything about putting on a conference is remarkably expensive. And half of your attendees wander off to visit the Statue of Liberty when they should be in your Python tutorial meeting.

It's not just us Smalltalk guys - NYC is just way, way too expensive to host an event in.