[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G 2014 Bid Q&A Period

[Andrew Ross]

I said 2M+ visitors per day below. I meant to say month.

On 07/02/2013 08:37 PM, Andrew Ross wrote:
> Hi Jeroen,
>
> On 07/02/2013 07:00 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote:
>> Dear committee member,
>> Although I'm not on the conf committee, I do have a few questions 
>> which I hope can be dealt with. They are not on the program, I hope 
>> to look into those as well, but thought I post these now. Both 
>> proposals are solid pieces of work, congratulations!
>>
>> Both submitters (and committee members):
>> - Do we have statistics on how many viewers we have / had for the AV 
>> streaming of conference presentations? I notice that in both 
>> proposals the streaming services are quite expensive (Portland 
>> 67.500$, Washington 50.000$) although I'm not sure the Washington 
>> number includes other facilities as well?
>> I think it is relevant to understand if this investment in streaming 
>> video is worth the money or that money would be better spend in 
>> another way / could lower the registration fees.
>> An option is also to record plenary presentations instead of all 
>> sessions?
>
> Confirmed, the staff budget as part of the Washington D.C. budget 
> includes a number of things like web development, sponsorship/accounts 
> receivable, registration, web infrastructure, and more.
>
> Typically the videos are watched between 250 and 750 times each. Some 
> are very popular and stretch into thousands of views each.
>
> While doing the videos is a modest expense, the value to attendees is 
> significant. It's like they can suddenly enjoy many times the number 
> of talks. The benefit to the wider community is similarly significant. 
> For every person in the room, roughly 10 times that many see the video.
>
> To give you an idea... FOSS4G 2009 & 2011 were recorded for around $5K 
> each. In my experience this is roughly an order of magnitude less than 
> other options.
>
> Being able to record off-line is also a very important differentiator. 
> I wouldn't recommend putting more pressure on the internet at the 
> conference.
>
>> Portland:
>> - It looks like there is an error in the formula for "Credit Card 
>> Fees (eventbrite)".
>> - Do workshop presenters receive a complementary registration for 
>> their efforts? This used to be good practice but was lost for the 
>> FOSS4G2013 conference. I see they are part of the Washington proposal 
>> :-)
>> - It would be nice to offer the Swag as options for sponsoring
>> - It may make sense to also budget for ~650 attendees?
>>
>> Washington:
>> - No money for marketing
>
> Thanks for asking about this. We'll make the best possible use of the 
> resources available to us at the Foundation & our committee members' 
> organizations. There's a lot we can do that won't show up in the 
> budget here. As just one example, when we organize community events on 
> the east coast, that provides a fantastic opportunity to promote the 
> conference and build awareness. Our committee members and supporters 
> are based in the major east coast cities.
>
> I'll have to talk with the Foundation's VP of Marketing to confirm, 
> but it may be possible to promote the event on Eclipse.org, which 
> receives 2M+ visitors per day.
>
> In terms of actual budget spend it was hard to put a number that had 
> any meaning at this point, we'll spend judiciously based on the needs 
> at the time. It is unlikely to be material to the budget.
>
>> - Lunch and breaks seems pretty expensive at 60$ + 35$ /person/day 
>> while the conference center is very cheap. Are they part of a package 
>> deal?
>
> That's right. Once we surpass the minimum food and beverage 
> requirement there is no charge for the rooms we've requested. High 
> food prices are typical for conference venues. We may be able to 
> negotiate them down once we're negotiating the contract for real. If 
> we can, and sponsorship is looking good (which is crucial!), lowering 
> registration may be possible.
>
>> - What happens with the net profit or loss beyond the OSGeo 
>> contribution?
>
> The Eclipse Foundation is prepared to cover the loss. OSGeo would not 
> be expected to do so.
>
> Should the event be more successful than the budget predicts, there 
> will be some balancing of re-investing to enhance priority areas as 
> determined by the committee.
>
> Should there be modest profit beyond that, the Foundation humbly 
> requests it.
>
> For what it's worth, I don't think they'll mind me sharing that we did 
> ask advice from Daniel Morissette & Peter Batty about the best way to 
> approach this. The advice was to keep it simple & clear which I hope 
> we've accomplished.
>
>> - Operations total cost is quite high. This includes "Meeting planner 
>> fee" and EF Staff and travel. Are these two complementary? And if so, 
>> could that be simplified to reduce the operations budget?
>
> Very good question. Thanks again.
>
> We felt it was important to be clear and up front what the actual 
> costs are as best we can determine them. They may be a little bit (but 
> not excessively) cautious as is appropriate at this stage. The 
> alternative, to under represent them and project a larger profit, 
> wasn't something we were comfortable with. We humbly hope this 
> approach is acceptable to the committee.
>
>> - It is unfortunate a number of budget items are still TBD, making 
>> comparison with the budget of Portland more complicated.
>
> Great comment. Please let me explain. As per the comments in the 
> budget TBD items such as the Zoo party, Icebreaker, and closing party 
> are sold at cost. Any revenue would be matched by an equal and 
> opposite expense. For this reason they are revenue neutral and we left 
> them as TBD to allow focusing on the other factors.
>
>> Cheers,
>> Jeroen
>>
>>
>> On 2 jul. 2013, at 21:10, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear conference committee members,
>>>
>>> We have received the full bid documents from Portland, OR and
>>> Washington, DC. It now fall to *you* to review those documents and ask
>>> the questions you have of the bidders.
>>>
>>> http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/proposals/2014/2014_Proposal_Portland.pdf 
>>>
>>> http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/proposals/2014/2014_Proposal_Portland_Budget.xls 
>>>
>>>
>>> http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/proposals/2014/2014_Proposal_Washington.pdf 
>>>
>>> http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/foss4g/proposals/2014/2014_Proposal_Washington_Budget.xlsx 
>>>
>>>
>>> The Q&A period is very *short* so please read and question to 
>>> bidders ASAP.
>>>
>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2014_Bid_Process#Bid_Process
>>>
>>> Post your questions and look for responses on conference_dev.
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>>
>>> Paul
>>> 2014 RFP Coordinator