[OSGeo-Conf] Question Period - Dates & Sponsorship

[Till Adams]

Hi Steven,

thank you for your quastions - here are our comments:

Dates
We do not see any problems regarding Intergeo, in contrast, better not 
having the same date as it was years before. In general, Intergeo is not 
the reason for the early date - as said in our proposal it's more, that 
September is really busy in Bonn and for this it leads to problems with 
WCCB availability, higher costs for WCCB and also more expensive 
accommodations. That are the real reasons why planning end of August.

We think regarding summer holiday season it's not that problem as we are 
quiet early, when announcing the conference in march 2015, so that 
potential attendees may plan their summer holiday for 2016 around that 
date.

Sponsorship
Regarding our sponsorship expectations we know that our figures are 
really cautious. Our PCO said in the first meeting, that we should not 
calculate with *any* sponsorship, but as Paul said, there are 
"traditional" sponsoring companies at FOSS4G over the past years. So 
that's why we calculated carefully with 41K € income on that side.
We think it's much better and also more serious not to expect too much 
on that side and then being kind of "surprised"... and also that holds 
us to keep costs as low as possible in general ;-)
By the way, that's the same we do when estimating our budget for FOSSGIS 
conferences as well.

On the other hand - regarding the potential we have here in Bonn and 
neighborhood with e.g. Cologne and Ruhrgebiet and the whole region 
situated in North-Rhine-Westfalia with alone 21 Million inhabitants in a 
surrounding of less than 200 kilometres (not mentioning states and 
countries in the neighbourhood):
In general there are many, many well known regionally, nationaly and 
globally known IT- and geobusiness companies around here fitting really 
well to FOSS4G-business and I am reasonably sure, that we can certainly 
achieve much more sponsorship than depicted.

All together, following this argumentation for respectable reasons we 
can't and won't surprise with any fixed or almost fixed Gold and 
Platinum sponsors at this early stage of plannings. All we can do is to 
assure, that there are several targeted candidates even for sponsorship 
levels of Gold and even more and that of course we will work on that as 
soon as possible.

We hope that meets your expectations,

Regards, Till & Bonn Team





> Hi Bonn and Dublin
>
> *Dates*
> *
> *
> You have both gone for dates in mid to late August (Bonn 24th, Dublin 
> 17th) - have you considered the impact on attendance from European 
> delegates during our traditional summer holiday season? Is there 
> really much problem with clashing with InterGeo? Might be worth 
> polling past delegates. What are the implications of moving to September
>
> *Sponsorship*
> *
> *
> There is a massive difference in sponsorship expectations
>
> Bonn sponsorship is very cautious at €41.5k which is good at this 
> stage, can you give a slightly more optimistic feel for what you think 
> you might achieve in x Platinum, y Gold type format - no names 
> although I would expect you to be able to confirm a 2:1 target ratio 
> minimum (i.e. if you think you will have 2 Golds you need a minimum of 
> 4 targets to approach)
>
> Dublin sponsorship is very ambitious at €198k particularly as you also 
> intend to charge €40k for exhibition space. How have you arrived at 
> these figures? Note that 2013 was an exceptionally fortunate year 
> which may not be a basis to model your sponsorship in Dublin. If you 
> only achieved the Bonn level of sponsorship and exhibition income you 
> would make a crashing loss, how can you mitigate this risk?
> ______
> Steven
>
>
>

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