Staying up-to-date with conferences and events

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With the seemingly huge number of conferences/events/trade shows now available for people working in IT/education or with particular vendors, how do you stay informed of any that may be of interest?

 

I've found a couple of times over the past few months I have come across events that I would have like to attended had I known about them in advance. Do you rely on word of mouth on sites such as this, or direct emails from vendors, or is there some other trick that I'm missing?