[OSGeo-Conf] 2013 RFP Questions (Helsinki & Nottingham)

[Paul Ramsey]

Sorry so late, but I won't penalize you for going to bed and answering later...

In general both bids are fully thought out and I'd have no problem
choosing either.

= Nottingham =

- How sure are you of your "EMCC / AV plus other rooms" expense lines?
My experience has been that rooms alone would be about that cost, and
that AV/Wifi can easily be 50% on top of that.
- Have you priced out Wifi access for all attendees?
- You're dropping $58K on a GeoCamp (twice the main venue line!!!),
what if it's 14C out? (Man, I had a cold visit to the UK last
month...)
- You have a revenue line for a Wed Icebreaker Reception & Dinner,
does that include two events or one? You have two expense lines, one
for Wed and one for Thurs.
- Does $99 fully cover the expense of the workshop day for attendees?
(Venue, food, overhead?) Victoria did over $200 for workshop cost, and
only broke even on workshops.
- You state fees both with and with-out sales tax. Is there a category
of registrants that would not have to pay the tax?
- In general your budget is very tight, on both the revenue and
expense sides (I feel like you are missing expenses and also possibly
understating revenue). So you might want to figure out what you'd do
if you had more money than you expect, as your sponsorship line in
particular is lower than historical trends. You also might want to
make sure you aren't missing any expenses.
- Your per-person cost is $599 for a full late registration, which is
within historical ranges.

= Helsinki =

- Your stated venue costs are almost twice the highest we've seen
historically. It looks like they includes A/V implicitly, but even
including that cost I'd put the overall cost quite a bit higher than
we paid even at expensive international event halls like Barcelona or
Sydney. Any comment on that? Am I missing something? Is Wifi also
included in this number?
- The higher venue cost seems to display most clearly in the workshop
cost, which is quite a bit higher than usual. Or maybe not. The
numbers in the bid document are not the same as in the full budget
spreadsheet. Could you clarify the workshop cost?
- Your per-person cost is $840 for a full late registration, $690 for
early bird. For comparison, Victoria was $565 for a full late
registration, $395 for early bird. Even so you only break even with
attendance of over 800.
- Do you feel like a narrower budget is possible?