[Aust-NZ] RE: Looking for value in cutting conference costs (plain text this time)

[Tim Bowden]

On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 20:20 -0800, Hamish wrote:
> Simon O'Keefe wrote:
> > 
> > After just having done my bookkeeping for the last six months, I've
> > calculated that the total cost of my attending last year's FOSS4G2007
> > in Canada came in at just over AU$4500. This includes airfares,
> > accommodation, conference fees, meals and other travel - anything I
> > collected receipts for. The total amount I spent on my trip would be
> > even more than that if I include costs for sightseeing, drinks and
> > souvenirs for my homesick Canadian wife.
> > 
> > I imagine anyone attending an Australian 2009 conference from
> > overseas would be similarly looking at spending between $3000 to
> > $5000, depending mostly on length of stay, availability of cheap
> > airfares, quality of accommodation, and entertainment budget.
> > 
> > All the things that the FOSS4G2007 conference organisers might have
> > been tempted to cut corners on would not have made any difference
> > to the great value that I believe I got out of that conference.
> > 
> > When you're thinking of cutting costs, and trying to shave that extra
> > $100 or so, keep in mind that that is a tiny percentage of the
> > overall investment that attendees will make to get here.
> > 
> > I love my FOSS4G2007 t-shirt and glossy programme.
> 
> 
> Also keep in mind that that extra $100 will probably make all the
> difference in whether or not grad students, postdocs, and the generally
> underpaid / unsupported can attend.

This is very true.  The majority of attendees will always be local (or
reasonably so), and can be quite cost sensitive, particularly if they
are students or "hobbyists" (ie, not employed directly in the spatial
field).

> 
> Some folks use free software for cost reasons. An expensive conference
> means they can't come, even if they do draw from somewhere nearby where
> a cheap carrier like Virgin Blue flies (eg Philippines/Indonesia/NZ). A
> number of (perhaps most) of the Free geospatial core software
> developers I collaborate with work on the software in their free time-
> their paid employment is in another field. Besides getting a week's
> vacation time off from their day job they'd need to pay for the
> conference out of their own pocket, or stretch the justification in the
> grant spending rather farther than they should. This is the 30% of the
> attendees who will be staying in a local backpackers.
> 

The report from the Victorian PCO noted that the FOSS4G crowd was
particularly cost sensitive in comparison to most international conf's.
I suspect that's common to many open source communities.

> A nice program is ok, a pen is handy, but when you start getting into
> tshirts, coffee mugs ... well it's nice to have some number of those
> available for sale at the registration desk but they are not critical.
> Sydney is an amazing city that sells itself, you don't need to bribe
> anyone with gifts in order for them to enjoy the experience.
> 

IMHO: T-shirt is mandatory (what decent OS conf doesn't come with a
T-shirt?) and a conf bag of some sort seems to be generally accepted as
a good idea.  Other trinkets shouldn't be included with rego unless
provided by a sponsor as a marketing exercise.

> I recently presented at the two day Spatial Information Research
> Colloquium here in Dunedin (SIRC2007), it drew researchers and
> local+central gov't representatives from both NZ and Aust. Cost
> including a nice dinner: $80!
>   http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/infosci/SIRC/SIRC2007/
> 

Who footed the bill?  I don't see how you can hold an event for a large
number of people (>500 which is what we have with FOSS4G) and keep the
cost so low.  To start with, venue hire costs would blow $80 (or
$40/day/head) out of the water before even looking at catering costs
(morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea).

> 
> Two years ago we hosted linux.conf.au here at Otago. As you can see
> from this site there was a sliding scale for conference fees, the
> cheapest level being $100:
>   http://www.linux.org.au/conf/2006/register/index.html
> 

The lca pricing model is one we are aware of and will consider.  We will
have opportunities to massage the rego fees as we firm up our costs and
sponsorship dollars.  For now though, we are playing it safe with a
slightly pessimistic budget.

> 
> Of course SYD has a higher cost of doing business than here, but still
> it would help draw many interesting but low-budget attendees if a
> concerted attempt was made to keep costs down & find lots of conf
> sponsors.
> 

We had a number of prelim budget conf calls, and you can be sure we paid
a great deal of attention to stripping out as much cost as we could.
You can be sure our minds are firmly focused on making the conf as
accessible as possible.

> 
> regards,
> Hamish Bowman
> 
> GRASS GIS Project
>   /
> Dept Marine Science
> University of Otago
> Dunedin, NZ 

Regards,
Tim Bowden