I'm kind of confused by where conferences (particularly large/government/etc. focused conferences) choose to be. Paris isn't really my first choice for a cost-effective place for a tech conference.

It's not as bad as the ICANN meetings, which were deliberately held in obscure/expensive places around the world just to keep people from attending, in the guise of "being globally representative". The funny/sad thing is that this isn't one of the worst decisions ICANN has made.