Academic tickets are always tougher to get, if it's really important to you to go to the conference you might consider putting the full price one on your credit card and selling your swag.
That is a tempting idea, but I'm on the east coast, so I really can't handle the cost of a ticket plus airfare there and back, even if I got reimbursed a little by the swag. I'll probably just end up taking a few days off and watching the live streams like the rest of the world.