What is it like to attend a predatory conference?

Never been to one of these conferences, but I had a co-worker go to its cousin: the boondoggle conference. A boondoggle conference is one set up at a nice location so you can have your office pay for a vacation by claiming you had a paper&#x2F;presentation selected. They were big 10-20 years ago, but not so much anymore as organizations caught on to the game.<p>It was held in Orlando (first clue), by a European academic journal (second), held in early August (third). He showed up and was told he&#x27;s been made the moderator for one of the afternoon session. There were only 5 people in the room other than the speakers.

&quot;One had come from Jamaica for a midwifery conference, but no midwifery talk was delivered.&quot; Love this wording.<p>I&#x27;ve received a lot of OMICS spam. &quot;Hello, Dr. $MyName, Greetings for the day!&quot; followed by a lot of slurp regarding my greatness in fields I&#x27;ve never worked or published in.<p>The Nature article was unusually reserved. Made no mention of the OMICS CEO, his Indian boiler rooms, or that they&#x27;ve threatened suits against Beall and others. Maybe they&#x27;re afraid of being next.