[OSGeo-Conf] Exhibiting costs at FOSS4G

[Steven Feldman]

Isn’t this what the Supporter level is for? €1500 with logo presence, shout out in the plenaries and including a full conference pass seems reasonable to me.

My recommendation, based on experience of many events, is that a one man business would be better networking around the event, doing a bit of guerrilla marketing, dropping some leaflets or stickers and meeting people. Standing on a small stand with no time for a break and waiting for people to come to you doesn’t work that well.

I am not sure that the conference organisers can solve the problems of accessibility for small companies from lower income countries. The costs are a lot more than just sponsorship or exhibiting and the conference does not have surplus funds to subsidise these companies unless we in the wealthier countries are willing to make quite large donations (increasing ticket prices would prompt a whole load of complaints from people who have the strange idea that FOSS4G events should be less expensive than they already are or even free)
______
Steven


> On 14 Apr 2016, at 14:07, Jonathan Moules <jonathan-lists at lightpear.com> wrote:
> 
> I'd go a bit further than Till here. Where Till says:
> 'Perhaps the issue is more: "How could we enable also small companies to present themselves on a FOSS4G?"'
> 
> which I agree with, I'd also ask:
> "How can FOSS4G be made more accessible to exhibitors (& delegates) from lower-GDP-nations"
> (for clarity - I'm in the UK, so wouldn't fall under that). I note the travel-grant (which is good), but that only covers travel.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
> 
> ---- On Thu, 14 Apr 2016 13:09:33 +0100 <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote ---- 
> Dear Conference committee,
> 
> I suggested Jonathan to make this a topic in the CC. Before that, I 
> clearly explained that we (FOSS4G 2016) can't change our terms,
> because a lot of sponsors already accepted our terms and prices and 
> that we can't make difference for companies depending on where they come 
> from.
> 
> Just wanted to add, that also on former FOSS4G conferences you never 
> had the chance to hire a booth without being a sponsor. The only thing 
> we changed was, that
> sponsorship and exhibition was decoupled. We did so because we didn't 
> want to waste sparse room for exhibition for sponsors that don't man 
> their booth anyway.
> 
> Perhaps the issue is more: "How could we enable also small companies to 
> present themselves on a FOSS4G?"
> 
> For us, as said, looks like that it's too late for Jonathan, I only can 
> hint on the demo-theatre we want to revive.
> 
> Regards, Till
> 
> 
> Am 2016-04-14 13:35, schrieb Jonathan Moules:
> > Hi List,
> > I was interested in potentially exhibiting at Bonn, but it seems 
> > that
> > this is only available to >= Bronze sponsors, maybe opening up to
> > Supporter level in the future if spaces remain empty.
> >
> > While Till was explained clearly why this was, this seems to me to 
> > be
> > somewhat exclusionary for smaller organisations given the sponsorship
> > costs for Bronze level isn't cheap - it's 5-10% of the annual income
> > of a one-man band. For an organisation that's not from a high-GDP
> > country these sums would be even more prohibitive.
> >
> > Till also pointed out this was still quite cheap and competative, 
> > but
> > it doesn't seem to be. Assuming I'm reading it right, compare this to
> > GeoBusiness for instance
> > 
> > (http://geobusinessshow.com/wp-content/uploads/GEO16_ExhibitorBro.pdf <http://geobusinessshow.com/wp-content/uploads/GEO16_ExhibitorBro.pdf>)
> > - £350/m2 (so about the same as the €500/m2 as Bonn) - but no
> > sponsorship requirement *and* a potentially much larger audience
> > (albeit not OpenSource focused) who themselves also get free
> > attendance.
> >
> > I'd like to suggest it may be worth considering how to facilitate
> > exhibitions at FOSS4G from smaller organisations, and organisations
> > from lower-GDP countries.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Jonathan
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Conference_dev mailing list
> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org>
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev <http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Conference_dev mailing list
> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/attachments/20160414/05fffb4a/attachment-0001.html>