[OSGeo-Conf] Some hints for 2017-teams

[till.adams at fossgis.de]

Hi FOSS4G-2017-bidders!

I am not part of the "official conference committee", but perhaps some 
up-to-date hints we, the 2016-team, just thought of might be helpful to 
you, also now in the question period. Read it or not ;-)


1.
(If not done already) Make kind of a risk analysis, that lists the 
costs you have 6,3,2,1 month before the event - this shows clearly, 
which costs you have in the very unlikely case, you have to cancel. 
Comparing these costs with the number of already registered attendees 
will help you to sleep better ;-)


2.
We've done a very, very conservative calculation and only calculated 
40k sponsoring money. Of course, the more, the better, but doing that 
will give you a more robust view on what attendees must bring in return. 
Might be you should adapt your break even points or even have to rise 
your fees.


3.
Also keep in mind, that offering special rates for students (and other 
groups) might cause problems for your general calculation!


4.
Might be think of seperating exhibition and sponsorship - I've just 
seen some empty big booths from Gold Sponsors in Seoul... manned booth 
are much more attractive for all attendees and so in general for all 
exhibitors ;-)


5.
@Philadelphia / @Ottawa: Arnulf just told me, that the 1500$ supporter 
package was especially created "as is", means with conference pass and 
is used by smaller companies - which are the ground deposit and so 
important for spreading the word! That's the reason, why we didn't touch 
it...


6.
@Philadelphia / @Ottawa: About Early Birdies - I just talked to 
Sanghee, chair of the 2015 event. In Seoul 25% of all attendees 
registered few days before online registration closed or did it on-site! 
And that's why we thought about how we can attract Early Birders with 
more than just a smaller price. I like the early plans from Boston 
attracting Early Birdies especially!


7.
@Ottawa: We plan a two day codesprint before and a two day cs after the 
conference (to be honest, we wanted to have 4 days before, but that did 
not work because of room avalability issues). There was a very, very 
positive feedback from various OSGeo-projects in doing so. So think of 
extending the Code Sprint Saturday somehow
@Boston, I didn't see anything about Code Sprint in your proposal?



So far, Till