[OSGeo-Conf] Seville Q's

[María Arias de Reyna]

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great proposal from the SLOC. Thank you
>
> Adding my q’s to Paul’s list (also posted to wiki)
>
>
>    1. Can you provide some more details of the “parallel official
>    schedule outside the main conference”?
>    2. You propose 9 parallel track with 351 20 minute presentation slots,
>    there does not appear to be any time allowance for questions and for
>    changeover? Previous FOSS4Gs have had 30 minute sots with 20 mins talk, 5
>    mins questions and 5 mins changeover.
>    3. Will workshop presenters receive free or reduced price entry to the
>    conference? Is this included in your budget?
>    4. Please clarify your plans to record sessions (all or some?)
>    5. Will you be streaming any sessions live? If so, just keynotes or
>    all sessions?
>    6. Is there room capacity for 1200 attendees in the presentation track?
>    7. While the mid range attendance at 1200 is in line with Boston in
>    2017 (1150) it is well above Bonn in 2016 (950) - I suggest it would be
>    prudent to budget for a lower “low” estimate.
>    8. Currently you only just cover costs with 900 delegates is there a
>    plan in case the economic environment has deteriorated by 2019?
>    9. How might you make the event financially viable with 750-800
>    delegates?
>    10. Does your budget include allowance for 15% free entrance to
>    students and staff and sponsors?
>    11. Your sponsorship target is moderately high, particularly if you
>    are focussing on a large proportion of public sector sponsors? Do you have
>    a contingency plan if sponsorship is less than expected? Who will be
>    responsible for recruiting sponsors, a member of SLOC or the PCO?
>    12. How have you accounted for VAT on ticket sales and expenses?
>    13. Have you allowed enough for the costs of a registration service
>    e.g. eventbrite and credit card fees
>    14. On your mid estimate 1200 delegates you only make a $40k surplus,
>    this is quite low and leaves little room except your contingency. Can you
>    clarify?
>    15. Your sponsorship rates seem low in comparison to previous events
>    Can you explain your rationale for this?
>    16. Can you clarify the maximum extent of the OSGeo Guarantee that you
>    are requesting?
>
>
> May the FOSS be with you
> ______
> Steven
>
>

Hi,

Answers already on the wiki, but for those who are not following the page:


   - *Can you provide some more details of the “parallel official schedule
   outside the main conference”?*

Our idea is to provide interesting workshops, talks and meetings outside
the FOSS4G scope, but of interest to the people attending the conference.
We will get in contact with all the tech and opendata communities in
Sevilla to make a parallel free schedule outside the venue (but as close as
we can).

This can be useful for different use cases:

   - Attendants that may come to the workshops but cannot afford to pay the
   full conference ticket. They can still make the most out of the tickets,
   staying the whole week and attending all these free events.
   - Attendants that are only interested in specific topics of the
   conference. They may found other topics relevant for them that may not be
   geo but still connected to what they do.
   - Companies looking for partners outside the geo world (like on the IoT
   codesprint we have already discussed).
   - Companies looking to hire. They will find talented developers that may
   not be inside the geo world but may be using some technology they need
   (docker, Java, Drupal, Python, R,...).

The exact details of what the topics and type of events will be are still
not decided, as we will work on it once we get confirmation of where the
FOSS4G will take place. Usually in Sevilla you can find workshops, talks
and business meetings every week from different technologies.

   - *You propose 9 parallel track with 351 20 minute presentation slots,
   there does not appear to be any time allowance for questions and for
   changeover? Previous FOSS4Gs have had 30 minute sots with 20 mins talk, 5
   mins questions and 5 mins changeover.*

Each slot will be one hour and contain 3 talks. So each talk will be 15
mins talk and 5 minutes questions. Between one slot and another there is
usually a break (coffee or lunch) so you can use the break to move between
rooms.

There is only between the slots 2 and 3 where there will be no break and we
will try to make both slots with similar content to diminish the movements
needed. They can be seen as a double slot.

It is true that between talks inside the same slot there will be no time
dedicated to movements between rooms, but in our experience, usually this
time is used anyway for extending the talk or the questions, so people who
want to change rooms between talks in the same slot, have to miss questions
anyway.

   - *Will workshop presenters receive free or reduced price entry to the
   conference? Is this included in your budget?*

We have a 15% of complimentary registrations that could include workshop
presenters/teachers, scholarship students, other speakers, sponsors’,
volunteers, etc. It will range from 135 to 180 free registrations that the
conference committee and SLOC will further detail. It could also be
possible to have some more reduced registration fees – instead of free
registration-always aligned with our budget provisions.

   - *Please clarify your plans to record sessions (all or some?)*

Our plan is to record all sessions; there will be a fix video camera in
every room, workshops included and in the conference plenary and parallel
tracks.

   - *Will you be streaming any sessions live? If so, just keynotes or all
   sessions?*

We will stream the plenary sessions, one in the morning and one to end up
each day, six plenary sessions in total, plus the parallel track that will
be run in the plenary room. We will design our program accordingly.

   - *Is there room capacity for 1200 attendees in the presentation track?*

We will have two big rooms: El Fuerte (where the plenaries will be) and
Circo del Condor. Both have a 1500 people capacity, so both rooms will be
good for high attendance talks.

   - *While the mid range attendance at 1200 is in line with Boston in 2017
   (1150) it is well above Bonn in 2016 (950) - I suggest it would be prudent
   to budget for a lower “low” estimate.*

We have calculated also for 900 assistants in our minimum scenario. We have
also presented a lower low estimate of 750-800 with a worst scenario
budget.

We have a plan to cut costs if we cannot reach the estimated number of
attendees. (see question of making the conference viable with 750-800
delegates). We estimate to get at least 900 attendees and that is our base
budget estimation. But still, we have a lot of extras this year we can cut
costs on if needed without attendees from past editions noticing anything
is missing (like the recording of the workshops).

   - *Currently you only just cover costs with 900 delegates is there a
   plan in case the economic environment has deteriorated by 2019?*

As we detail in page 57, our worst scenario (but still breaking even) would
be having 800 attendees to the conference and 400 workshops slots occupied
(with 80% of early bird registration). In this case, complimentary
registrations would go down and wouldn’t give right to any of the services
that have costs, except for sponsors (such as gala dinner, lunches, etc.).

   - *How might you make the event financially viable with 750-800
   delegates?*

We believe that 750-800 attendees is still a very interesting number in
order to get sponsors, and we assume that we will be perfectly capable of
maintaining a high income through sponsorships, while in the case of having
less attendees, most of the expenses will be lower.

   - *Does your budget include allowance for 15% free entrance to students
   and staff and sponsors?*

Yes, as it has explained previously.

   - *Your sponsorship target is moderately high, particularly if you are
   focussing on a large proportion of public sector sponsors? Do you have a
   contingency plan if sponsorship is less than expected? Who will be
   responsible for recruiting sponsors, a member of SLOC or the PCO?*

We will work together, the SLOC and the PCO to get the sponsors. SLOC and
PCO have very good connections in both public and private sector and have
previous record of success in many open-source conferences. Anyway because
the amounts proposed for sponsorship are reasonable low, we believe it will
be very feasible to involve many different companies to sponsorship the
event.

The contingency plan, if we don’t have enough sponsors, will be to reduce
slightly in expenses we can control, like catering or even technical issues
that are linked to sponsorship. If FOSS4G 2019 finally comes to Sevilla we
are convinced that the expectations that we have generated in the proposal
phase will transform into (economic) support.

We plan to reach sponsors from past years but also we want to reach
companies that don’t usually sponsor FOSS4G but instead sponsor other
smaller events in Spain/Portugal. This way we expect to increase the total
number of sponsors, even if they contribute with a smaller fee.

There is also these laws the Spanish and Portuguese Government are pushing
through that will give tax incentives to companies which invest in events
commemorating the 500th anniversary [1] [2] (and more laws incoming). This
should attract sponsors that wouldn’t sponsor the conference otherwise.

We want to reach other companies that participate in FOSS4G but don’t
usually sponsor. This is a longer shot, but we will work on extending the
pool of companies that sponsor the conference.

[1] https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2017-7813

[2] https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2017-10159



   - *How have you accounted for VAT on ticket sales and expenses?*

Just like it is contemplated in the budget template, we have set net prices
for the tickets, but have counted on the 21% VAT in the expenses.

   - *Have you allowed enough for the costs of a registration service e.g.
   eventbrite and credit card fees*

We are counting on a 4% of the final budget for bank expenses, credit card
commissions and that kind of expenses, which should be enough.

   - *On your mid estimate 1200 delegates you only make a $40k surplus,
   this is quite low and leaves little room except your contingency. Can you
   clarify?*

We have tried to be conservative with the expenses, and of course we count
that there might be expenses that will turn out without being contemplated,
but there will be others that we will manage to lower once we are dealing
with real contracting with suppliers. It is certainly a conservative and
cautious estimation of profits.

   - *Your sponsorship rates seem low in comparison to previous events Can
   you explain your rationale for this?*

Knowing how companies and public administration work in our countries, it
will be easier to get more sponsors to pay less money, than to ask
companies to pay bigger amounts. This will give us some extra work, because
we need to make many more contacts, but we think is more realistic than
expecting less companies to increase their sponsorship fee.

   - *Can you clarify the maximum extent of the OSGeo Guarantee that you
   are requesting?*

Just on the event that the conference has to be cancelled because of very
low subscription or an economic cataclysm in 2019 we deem necessary the
OSGeo Guarantee. We should know that circumstance by the end of May 2019.
The estimate amount would be around EUR 45,000 (Forty-five thousand euro)
that includes fixed expenses. We will have for other force majeure
circumstances an insurance policy to protect the conference.
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