Tech conference rents cruise ship to house attendees

When it comes to the larger tech conferences, accommodation for attendees can often be a problem.

Nowhere is this more apparent than Salesforce. com's Dreamforce conference, which kicks off in San Francisco today. More than 160,000 people are registered to attend the four-day conference, and tickets weren't cheap. The early bird price was $1,599.

Salesforce, which is the one of the largest software companies in the world, has so many people attending its conference, it has hired a cruise ship to house some of the attendees.

Almost 1,100 conference attendees will be staying aboard the cruise ship, which is docked at San Francisco’s Pier 27, and will serve as a floating hotel for the duration of Dreamforce.

The Celebrity Infinity cruise ship has been nicknamed the “Dreamboat” after the conference.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, Uber founder Travis Kalanick, fashion designer Donna Karan, Cisco chief executive Chuck Robbins, YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki and Salesforce chairman Marc Benioff will all address the conference over the coming days.

CoderDojo chief executive Mary Moloney and Stripe co-founder John Collison are also among the line-up of speakers.

As well as 160,000 registered attendees, Salesforce says more than 10 million people are expected to watch the conference keynotes and talks online.