If you scrutinized the hundreds of conferences on the agenda this year and decided South by Southwest was one you couldn’t miss, congratulations—you are a shrewd and seasoned exploiter of corporate opportunity. Assuming your company is footing the bill, that is.

South by Southwest, which kicks off this weekend in Austin, Texas, has grown from a local music festival into a Top 5 annual event for honchos in technology, film, and the arts, very broadly defined. Hip-hop artists Snoop Dogg and Wyclef Jean will be there this year. So will Al Gore, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, New York Times columnist David Brooks and a band named Elvis Depressedly. Roughly 70,000 attendees will stumble around Austin for nine days watching films, listening to bands, snoozing through panel discussions and searching desperately for a deliverable to bring back to the boss, justifying the expense.

The party atmosphere at SxSW, combined with its sunny location and relatively reasonable cost, earn the festival our distinctly unscientific People’s Boondoggle Award.

There’s a boondoggle factor at most business conferences, of course, since they offer a chance to get away from the office (and the family) and enjoy some perks not always available at home. SxSW has risen to the top of the list by infusing just enough business into Austin’s version of Mardi Gras to attract corporate money. And the $695 minimum ticket price seems just right: It’s high enough to keep spring breakers away, but not so steep the accounting department will say no.

The annual TED conference that begins March 16 in Vancouver demonstrates just how egalitarian SxSW really is. You can’t just purchase tickets to TED, which stands for technology, education and design and usually features short presentations from a lineup of eclectic geniuses. You have to apply for admission, then be approved based on how much enlightenment you’ll personally add to the conference. Then, if accepted, you’ll have to pay an entry fee of $8,500, minimum. If you’re wondering who would go to all that trouble, the answer is, plenty of people: The 2015 conference is sold out.

Since conferences vary in their appeal and usefulness, we’ve handicapped 10 of the most popular business powwows, giving each our own boondoggle rating. Our methodology is so simple you can do it at home: We gave each conference a subjective score between 1 and 5—higher being better—in three categories: cost, location and fun. Then we added those three numbers to get an overall rating, with the highest possible score being 15. Our list follows. Tell us how you’d change it in the comments below.

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10 (tie). World Economic Forum annual meeting. Usual time and location: January, Davos, Switzerland. Boondoggle rating: 8 out of 15.

If money weren’t a factor, this boondoggle for billionaires might top our list. But the price of entry, which requires membership in the WEF, starts at around $70,000 and rises quickly. You basically have to be CEO to get accounting to sign off on that expense report.

10 (tie). TED. March, various cities on the West Coast; this year, Vancouver. Boondoggle rating: 8.

This gathering of intelligentsia only accommodates 1,000 attendees or so, which means hardly anybody can get in. Plus, the $8,500 minimum ticket price means you must be smart and rich to attend. Points off for inaccessibility.

10 (tie). Milken Institute Global Conference. Late April or early May, Beverly Hills. Boondoggle rating: 8.

This confab of business and finance titans — known as Davos West — usually features sunny skies and some exclusive parties, if you can get invited to them. But the $10,000 minimum cost of a ticket — while cheaper than Davos -- is still too rich for most 99 percenters.

7. Tech Crunch Disrupt SF. September, San Francisco. Boondoggle rating: 9.

For roughly $1,000 ($300 for students) you can listen to top entrepreneurs explain how they beat the odds and upended the competition. But the location, in Silicon Valley’s backyard, makes it less of a getaway than other conferences. The same goes for a springtime version in New York City, which also tends to draw locals.

6 (tie). Consumer Electronics Show. January, Las Vegas. Boondoggle rating: 10.

It’s cheap, with tickets available for $200. It’s also mayhem, with 170,000 frantic techies trying to make sense of every imaginable gadget. And while Las Vegas is paradise to some, it’s the world’s biggest strip mall to others.

6 (tie). Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Late April or early May, Omaha. Boondoggle rating: 10.

If you’ve always wanted to see Omaha, an insidery way to do it is to buy a single B share of Warren Buffett’s famous company (latest price: $144) which earns you admission to “Woodstock for capitalists,” as the Berkshire (BRK-A) annual meeting is known. If you’ve never really wanted to see Omaha, you could just read the Berkshire annual report instead.

6 (tie). Mobile World Congress. February or March, Barcelona. Boondoggle rating: 10.

Barcelona in late winter is almost as grand as Paris in the spring. But a short overseas trip to check out the latest in mobile gadgets can leave Americans too jetlagged to party. And 93,000 attendees produces too many overcrowded bathrooms.

3 (tie). Burning Man. Late August or early September, northern Nevada. Boondoggle rating: 11.

Since it’s “an annual experiment in temporary community” rather than an overt business conference, this desert rave techncially shouldn’t be on our list. But Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google (GOOGL) bonded over Burning Man, and technorati such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have reportedly attended. So bring a sport jacket to cover your abdominal tattoos, just in case.

3 (tie). Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference. July, Sun Valley, Idaho. Boondoggle rating: 11.

Best thing about it: It’s free. Worst thing about it: You’ll never get invited. The boutique investment bank Allen & Company hosts this elite gathering of media and tech gurus and foots the entire bill. But it only invites 300 or so A-listers, which last year included CEOs Bob Iger of Disney, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Reed Hastings of Netflix and many others. You definitely won’t be able to hear Elvis Depressedly here.

1. South by Southwest. March, Austin. Boondoggle rating: 12.

Anybody can go, there’s music and entertainment for nearly every taste, and the $695 minimum ticket price isn’t much more than a choice seat for an NFL or NBA game. Just remember to check email every now and then. You’re supposed to be on the clock.

Rick Newman’s latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.