Thinning attendance, 'absconding' speakers and too much 'unused space' in the lecture halls have embarrassed organisers of the much-hyped Indo-US Space Conference underway in Bangalore.

A plenary session on Thursday afternoon was shifted to a smaller hall as most of the chairs in the banquet hall, the original venue, remained empty till the last minute.

But the participants (mostly Indians) who decided to stay had another surprise as four of the six key speakers did not turn up, and neither did they bother to explain their absence. Their task was handled by substitutes.

The plenary was the most important session where the recommendations of different groups were to be discussed.

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This should not be interpreted as a signal that people are not interested in the event, a senior Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist told PTI. "The visitors had been working very hard and they need some time to visit the city," he said.