The local chapter of UPA hosted a review of the 2005 user experience conferences last night in Bethesda. From the sound of it, CHI and STC are not particularly useful to practitioners, and your money would be best spent on the IA Summit and UPA. STC sounds overwhelmingly huge and diverse, with less of a chance for marketing and networking. CHI sounds predictably academic – we can read about the good stuff in the academic press. The IA Summit provides a range of practical material, although it is heavily oriented toward high-level consulting that sometimes is closer to business strategy than interaction design. UPA also has a big range of things, and I was pleasantly surprised to find hands-on training in methodologies like card sorting and stakeholder interviews. UPA actually sounded like the most practical for in-the-weeds IAs, interestingly.