[OSGeo Finance] FOSS4G 2008 Budget

[Paul Ramsey]

Dave,

On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Dave McIlhagga
<dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca> wrote:
>  So tell me if my understanding is right -- from what I can see, in the
> event of the low-ball number of attendees (700) and based on the current
> committed sponsors/exhibitors -- we're around R 700,000 (100k USD) short of
> break-even. The only place to make that up is in additional sponsorship /
> exhibitor funds.

>  First of all -- am I reading the tea leaves correctly?

Right, based on *current* confirmed sponsorship, the budget is in
deficit. That said, the projected sponsorship levels are reasonable,
IMO.  Based on the experience of GeoAfrica in filling an exhibition
floor, and previous FOSS4G conferences.

>  Secondly -- from your experience with 6 months to go before the big event
> -- does attracting 100k in more sponsorship seem to be a likely thing to
> pull off?

I think they have not done a great job rounding up sponsors early in
the process, but I do not think it is impossible or even highly
unlikely to get that 100k in sponsors/exhibitors over the next months.

>  Any other thoughts you can shed on this would be helpful.

My comfort level with this budget is based on the previous GeoAfrica
event, which did break 600 attendees, and had a full exhibition floor.
 If we should happen to lose $100K on this bet, we'll split that w/
GISSA, so we're only down $50K and that's covered by the '07 surplus
easily.  And losing $100K would require going forward with no course
corrections along the way to reduce expenditures to meet revenues if
things look like they are going very very bad, so it truly is a very
worst case scenario.

I have lots of discomfort about this things have been marketed so far,
and the overall visibility of the conference, and am trying to push
those issues to the fore, but the budget itself doesn't give me the
willies anymore.

Paul