[OSGeo-Discuss] Costly FOSS4Gs

[Andrea Aime]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 8:39 AM, Bruce Bannerman <
bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> When you look at the costs associated with a person attending a typical
> international FOSS4G event, the actual conference fees a small amount of
> the actual cost.
>
> Consider airfares, transportation, accomodation, meals, lost wages etc.
> There is nothing that an LOC can do about these individual costs.
>

Ah hem, nothing that the LOC can do once the conference site is chosen, but
something that OSGeo can do when assigning the location and timing.
And I believe that is happening, if I'm not wrong for the first time the
LOC needs to provide expected cost of airfare and accommodation as part
of their proposal, which will make people consider carefully that aspect
too.

Another aspect that was not cited but that I heard in conversations and
believe is important, it's that it is really hard to compress
the cost of a large conference: the LOC needs a place that can host 1000
people, and that can give internet to this many people,
that places forces the catering package on you (I've been told by several
conference chairs there no way to dodge that) and the
two together make up for a large amount of the cost.

So, besides some exceptions (think FOSDEM) it seems the only way to setup a
cheaper conference is to make a smaller
one that can be hosted at a university or in a smaller conference center.
Hence the focus on the local conferences.
I believe the threshold is at around 500 people, larger than that one is
hung on the costly options.

Cheers
Andrea

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Ing. Andrea Aime
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