The registration period debuts in about two weeks, so get there early

Mar 14, 2012 14:39 GMT  ·  By

Google I/O may have been pushed back this year, but it's now bigger and more expensive. It spans three whole days, rather than two as before, but tickets will sell for $900, €685 this time.

Of course, the price should hardly be a problem, judging by last year's interest, the tickets should be gone in a matter of hours. It's good then that Google has also published the date when tickets will become available.

In you plan on attending this year's I/O developer conference, you'd better camp out at the official website on March 27, at an early 7AM PDT, that's 2PM UTC, when tickets go on sale.

Last year, all tickets were sold out in less than one hour and that's probably not going to change this time around, even if they are more expensive.

Tickets were $550, €420 last year, but were sold at an Early Bird rate of $450, €345 for the first two months or so. Of course, since they sold out in 59 minutes, all were sold at the lower price. There will also be tickets for students and professors at $300, €230, compared to $150, €165 last year.

The thing to keep in mind though is that Google is known for giving away free stuff at I/O. Last year, the 5,000 or more attendees all got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for free. In previous years, Google handed out free Android phones.

One more thing to keep in mind, you'll need both a Google+ account and Google Wallet to pay for tickets this year.

Google I/O 2012 will be held from June 27th to June 29th, in San Francisco as always. Initially, the conference was planned for April 24th and 25th, but Google later announced that it pushed back the date to get an extra day.