[OSGeo-Conf] Invitation to hear your wisdom about FOSS4G 2015

[Cameron Shorter]

I really like ideas being floated about explaining the value of early 
registration, and providing extra non-financial rewards to attract early 
registration.

Maybe even have a way for people to provide an early indication that 
they plan to come, but the payment is in the company payment system. Eg: 
Pay $20 reservation by (early bird + X weeks). (We expect this will be 
covered personally). The $20 will provide you with preferential 
treatment to accommodation, t-shirt, workshop, whatever we decide to 
offer these people. Later, the person's employer will pay the conference 
attendance. This will give organisations an early indication of expected 
number of attendees.

I've updated the graph of the Seoul metrics further to break out 
international and local registrations.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BpkO5WOFQ_DZEWNMLj_hAhEre0m0io_j-JGf7geAW5Y/edit#gid=57

International registrations spike during early bird, then slowly but 
steadily increased. This is in line with metrics from prior conferences.
Local registrations spike about a month before the event. It appears 
there was a successful publicity campaign or similar resulting in lots 
of registrations? Maybe the LOC can enlighten us.
For prior years, where we have metrics for local attendees, we do see 
many late local registrations, although Seoul appears to have had an 
unusually late spike.

Cheers, Cameron

On 23/09/2015 5:06 am, Gert-Jan van der Weijden - Stichting OSGeo.nl wrote:
> Three more thoughts:
> 1. For SME's (and larger companies) it might be useful to make 1 or more
> non-personal reservations.
> A lot of SME's know long in advance that they will send 1, 2 or even 3 three
> participants to FOSS4G, but will decide just shortly before the conference
> who exactly these 1,2, 3 lucky ones are.
>
> 2. Explain to the audience why we use the early bird discount principle.
> That might persuade people to register early. Not because of the discount
> itself, but because of the "kickstarter-like" idea behind it.
>
> 3. Let participant explain (on the registration form) how they heard about
> FOSS4G. That's during the registration months already valuable for
> FOSS4G-2016 itself, and of course also for next FOSS4Gs.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Gert-Jan
>
>
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: conference_dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> [mailto:conference_dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Namens Gert-Jan van der
> Weijden
> Verzonden: dinsdag 22 september 2015 16:03
> Aan: conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> Onderwerp: Re: [OSGeo-Conf] Invitation to hear your wisdom about FOSS4G 2015
>
> Same goes for the BaseCamp hostel: a lot of peeple seem very enthousiast
> about this wonderful place to stay, and the number of places (120) here is
> limited as well (although I realize it's a bit complicated to make a package
> deal of the FOSS4G registration and the BaseCamp registration)
>
>
> I also like Steven's suggestion to do a "buy 2, get 1 extra for half price"
> discount (or similar "enterprise-discounts").
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Gert-Jan
>
>
> Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> schreef:
>
>> Good idea
>> ______
>> Steven
>>
>>
>>> On 22 Sep 2015, at 12:58, b.j.kobben at utwente.nl wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Seeing that workshops are usually popular, and place is actually
>>> limited, this seems to me an obvious candidate for getting people in
> early.
>>> Something like "discounted workshops if booking before date x", or
>>> "popular workshop y only available for early bookers"...
>>>
>>> Barend
>>>
>>> --
>>> Barend Köbben
>>> Senior Lecturer ­ ITC-University of Twente PO Box 217, 7500 AE
>>> Enschede (Netherlands) @barendkobben http://www.itc.nl/geoinformatics
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22-09-15 13:33, "till.adams at fossgis.de" <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Steven,
>>>>
>>>> your thoughts were exact ours ;-)
>>>>
>>>> The idea with the special benefit is the one that also came to my mind.
>>>> We'll think about that - I think we are planning lots of
>>>> side-activities, so thism ight be a suitable way.
>>>>
>>>> Regards, Till
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Am 2015-09-22 13:10, schrieb Steven Feldman:
>>>>> The challenge is to provide some real incentives for early
>>>>> registration - price seems the obvious one but it creates 2
>>>>> problems either you discount price levels to such a low level that
>>>>> you might lose money on early bird delegates or you artificially
>>>>> increase the price of non early birds to create the differential
>>>>> and discourage late bookers. Neither is ideal.
>>>>>
>>>>> One lesson from both past FOSS4Gs and other events is not to extend
>>>>> the early bird deadline, this results in a loss of confidence in
>>>>> any limited offers and encourages the expectation that there will
>>>>> be further extensions so there is no need to book early. If an
>>>>> event needs to offer an incentive after the early bird has expired
>>>>> there are several other ways to offer a similar (but slightly
>>>>> smaller discount) e.g. book for 2 or more delegates and get x%
>>>>> discount off second delegate
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe a better option is to offer some other benefits to early birds?
>>>>> Limited t-shirt? A free day of workshops? Privileged access to
>>>>> something?
>>>>>
>>>>> ______
>>>>> Steven
>>>>>
>
> Gert-Jan van der Weijden
> Voorzitter Stichting OSGeo.nl
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-- 
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com,  F +61 2 9009 5099