[OSGeo-Conf] added risk analysis for FOSS4G in budget plannings

till.adams at fossgis.de till.adams at fossgis.de
Tue Aug 25 06:15:01 PDT 2015


Dear Conference Committee,

as promised, I've done a rough estimation about our pre-conference 
costs to be payed in advance in case of a complete cancellation.

For those interested in the real numbers, I uploaded a new folder in 
foss4g-2016's SVN called "budgetp_planning" with an updated budget 
planning sheet derived from our proposal. The costs there are not full 
updated yet, but the big cost factors are up-to-date.
At the end I added a section "risk analysis" (from line 123 on) where I 
listed the big cost-factors and what the contractor will charge in case 
of full cancellation (e.g. conference center, caterer, PCO, ship charter 
and ship catering for the gala event, band). I also added an amount of 
20k for "incalculables", which is just an estimation from me and not 
based on anything.

Then I calcualted the percentages we have to pay for the scenario full 
cancel 6, 3, 2, 1 month before the event. The numbers are amazing, I'd 
like to have the "1 month before event" on my personal bank account ;-).
All this, I've calcualted with a summed up VAT of 13%, as I am quite 
sure, that we'll get some of the bigger costs down to the 7% VAT, as 
lined out in our proposal. So I took the normal 19% and the reduced 7% 
together and divided by 2.

In short, these are the gross numbers:
cancel 6 month before event:  62.000 €
cancel 3 month before event:  81.500 €
cancel 2 month before event: 104.000 €
cancel 1 month before event: 354.000 €

As said, these are worse scenarios, especially under the assumption, 
that we really have to pay 100% for conference center - I did not debate 
this, as my contact there is on holidays, but that's what their general 
terms and conditions say.


I did only perform a quick risk analysis based on less attendees than 
the lined out 685 as the actual break even point. Everybody may do this 
just by taking our sheet and play with the numbers of attendees.

My first fixed perception from these numbers is:
We can't cancel the event 1 month before. In case of this, we'd have to 
take the risk, that we'll have less attendees than expected. If we get 
at least 300 attendees, we'll have the same loss, than we'd have in case 
of full cancellation 2 month before.
FYI: For FOSSGIS conferences we had >500 attendees in 2014 and 460 in 
2015...


Taking all this into account, Bonn's LOC would like to have a 
liablility from OSGeo for 100.000 € or, in case of a less guaranteered 
amount, we'll have to find other ways (insurance) to assure us (= our 
local chapter FOSSGIS e.V.). In return, we of course offer to transfer 
the bulk of the net return after all costs to OSGeo - this also because 
we see and know, that FOSS4G is an OSGeo event and the major income 
source for OSGeo.

Reagarding the newest discussion on the conference list, we are most 
"option 3", especially because all work done by LOC is voluntary work.
Further details to be discussed.


Regards, Till





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