[OSGeo-Conf] Questions in preparing 2011 budget

[Paul Ramsey]

Eric,

It would be helpful to see the working budget when talking about this.
There were some big line-items I had questions about that I didn't see
answers to in the end...

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 9:49 AM, Eric Wolf <ebwolf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Workshops - we are exploring an "ala carte" workshop menu where different
> workshops have different costs (based, typically, on whether equipment needs
> to be rented). What has workshop revenue (not expenses) been like in the
> past?

2009 will have the best unified workshops budget. I had *about* $200
per person for workshops and 240 registrations, that was slightly
below the actual expenses.

> 2. Gala Dinner - should this be included in the registration?

No, it should be an optional line item and should fully cost-recover
the dinner. You can plan it as a 100% standalone item.

> considering a closing plenary with lunch on the final day that would be
> included in the registration. The cost for the lunch would be $55/head
> whereas the Gala Dinner is estimated at $79/head. My thought was to make the
> less-expensive lunch a less-formal wrap up meeting and the Gala dinner a
> more formal, extra cost item.

You can probably alter your budget calculations by grossing down the
expected closing lunch attendance. That is, only 65% (or whatever) of
attendees will actually consume it, so your food costs will not be
attendance*lunchprice.

> 3. What are thoughts on 1-day pass registrations? There are an astounding
> number of GIS professionals in Denver and the Front Range. A large number of
> them may not be interested in investing in the entire conference (either
> time or cost) but would love to pay, say $150, to attend one day of the
> conference. This is harder to budget for, but I think it could boost the
> revenues of the conference.

1-day price should be 1.25 * total price / 3. Basically put a premium
on it, but do offer it.


P