[OSGeo-Conf] Open open source, reduce registration fees.

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

My trip to FOSS4G-Bonn cost me 1500USD for air-tickets, 630USD
(early bird Including gala dinner) for registration and 250USD
(for 7 nights) for sharing a nice little house with Gerald and
Nick.

All this was paid through my project budget. For example, had the
early registration been 180USD cheaper (450USD @150USD/day), I
could have sent three of my students to make FOSS4G related presentation 
at local conferences.

So I do not understand the logic that high registration
fee is only a "small" fraction of the cost involved for
participants. Also, lower registration fee may attract
more participation and we may end-up generating same
amount as surplus and also have more new faces attending
the event. We do not know if that happen since we have not
tried lowering the conference prices recently.

Best

Venka

On 2/7/2017 4:49 PM, Till Adams wrote:
> +1 - Paul hits 100% my opinion.
>
> Am 06.02.2017 um 18:15 schrieb Paul Ramsey:
>> Regular reminder:
>> No doubt a $100 drop on registration would be determinative for a few,
>> but it will not do much to change the equation for even a backpacking
>> overseas traveller, who will pay (from Vancouver) $1000 to get there
>> and $600+ in accommodation and meals, depending on how long they stay
>> (doing workshops? doing code sprint?)
>> Using second-city sites (Victoria instead of Vancouver, Lausanne
>> instead of Geneva) can shave registration dollars at the margins, but
>> they'll get eaten up instead in travel costs.
>> Local regional conferences (Foss4g.nl) should probably aim to go low
>> and hyper-accessible, since they draw from a population that can
>> economize on all aspects of the conference experience (stay at home,
>> get up at 4am and walk to the venue from Haarlem, bring a bag lunch).
>> Foss4g international is... international, there's going to be a
>> minimum spend to get there and do it, no matter how few coffees are
>> served, how spare the venue, or how much volunteers are used and abused.
>> P.
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 7:54 AM, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com
>> <mailto:shfeldman at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Reposting this from the board list as it may interest the CC.
>>
>>     The current target in RfP is $650 including social activities but
>>     excluding workshops. The costs of travel and accommodation have
>>     equalled or, for out of region delegates, exceed the registration
>>     costs.
>>
>>     To my knowledge no proposal has been received for the last 5 years
>>     that was able to support 800+ delegates at ca $500
>>
>>     2019 will be a ‘European’ year, I am sure that the CC would
>>     welcome a $500 proposal from the Netherlands community
>>
>>     ______
>>     Steven
>>
>>     Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2017 09:38:47 +0000
>>     From: <l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl <mailto:l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl>>
>>     To: <board at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:board at lists.osgeo.org>>
>>     Subject: [Board] Open open source, reduce registration fees.
>>     Message-ID:
>>     <62bfc24ab8c3406490757d8c14802bbe at EXMBX32.ad.utwente.nl
>>     <mailto:62bfc24ab8c3406490757d8c14802bbe at EXMBX32.ad.utwente.nl>>
>>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>>     Dear board,
>>
>>     Where is the cap on registration fees for FOSS4G? You have closed
>>     open source to me with these steep registration fees. You have to
>>     change this. A few years ago I could hardly convince my
>>     departmental management to pay for registration. Now it is
>>     impossible! Please open up the conference again. Open open source!
>>     Those who cannot organize a conference below $500 should not be
>>     allowed to organize. Scale down. No fancy stuff. Back to the
>>     basics! Back to the core!
>>
>>     With kind regards,
>>
>>     Luc Boerboom
>>
>>     Dr. Ir. Luc Boerboom
>>     Assist. Prof Spatial Planning and Decision Support Systems and
>>     Infrastructures
>>     Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-information
>>     Management
>>     Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
>>     (ITC), http://www.itc.nl/
>>     University of Twente, http://www.utwente.nl/
>>
>>     E: l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl
>>     <mailto:l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl><mailto:l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl <mailto:l.g.j.boerboom at utwente.nl>>
>>     T: +31 (0)53 487 42 47 or +31 (0)53 487 44 44
>>     Postal address
>>     PO Box 217
>>     7500 AE  Enschede
>>     The Netherlands
>>
>>
>>
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