Stardust is giving unemployed tech workers free passes to their Content Networking Event in December. In my opinion, this type of thing should be standard for conferences in the tech/Internet industry. Low entry fees for the unemployed (~$50 to cover basic processing costs, etc.), higher fees for folks who are self-employed or work for non-profits (~$200-300), and full price for those attending on behalf of a corporation (~$1500). Of course, I also think that $1500 for a conference is outrageous...the best conferences I've been to haven't been worth even a 1/4 of that.