First, welcome to FT!

Second, you can do a search re: the topic as it's come up before. To do that, click on search this forum in the upper right corner & type in your search parameters.

Having said that, if the conference is in Long Beach, the Renaissance Long Beach is nice. It's located on Ocean & Pine. Very close to a lot of things - shops, bars, restaurants, tourist sites, etc. Not too far a drive to Irvine or other SoCal places. You should be able to get a room there w/in your target range.

Cheers.