[Board] Fwd: [Foss4g2010] subscriptions

[andrea giacomelli]

Hi,

I haven't been following the earlier parts of the process.. so I'm
taking an "observer" angle here...

the exercise of double checking local pricing models for any event is
surely the best practice, and it seems that the LOC has been doing
this.

If the prices which will be proposed will be "out of the European
market", we will have a lot of extra-European guests, and possibly a
few European folks less.

e.g. : the main Italian GIS event (ASITA), has a 250 Euro registration
fee for four days.

a typical ASITA visitor may consider going to FOSS4G at a higher price
(that is fair enough, as the Barcelona event will have a much broader
scope), but the higher that will get the less he/she will see the
value of coming...

my 2 Eurocents.... I will leave the rest of the elaboration to those
who have more background information on the overall roadmap to the
gathering of the tribes (and my apologies if the 2 Eurocents have been
already considered ;) )

Regards

Andrea Giacomelli
GFOSS.it - vice president and media relations manager
http://www.pibinko.org

2009/11/27 Lorenzo Becchi <lorenzo at ominiverdi.com>:
> hi guys, I'm happy we have a little bit of action in this list, finally.
>
> I don't know why there is all this interest now about prices when you have
> been approving this budget with same prices one year ago. I've heard no
> comments at that time.
>
> Anyway, inside the LOC we've been evaluating many strategic factors,
> considering the actual economical situation in Europe, listening to Grupo
> Pacifico (who has been organizing conferences for 25 years) and other local
> organizations.
> The result has been choosing these prices.
>
> I will propose a final review of them inside the LOC and Grupo Pacifico and
> I cannot advance any comment about the final result.
>
> We will publish the result ASAP because it's time to open the gates.
>
> thx
> lorenzo
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) <arnulf at osgeo.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>>
>>> Geoff Zeiss wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Paul has identified an important issue, at least in my mind.
>>>>
>>>> A strawman
>>>>
>>>> Just to get the conversation going, could I suggest that to continue to
>>>> be
>>>> financially secure OSGEO needs at least two repeatable sources of
>>>> significant revenue.  At this point I believe these are the annual
>>>> FOSS4G
>>>> conference and sponsorship.  If we are going to eliminate or
>>>> significantly
>>>> reduce the revenue from one of them, for whatever reason, could I
>>>> suggest
>>>> that we need to identify a replacement.  If we can't then I don't think
>>>> we
>>>> can responsibly reduce the potential revenue of FOSS4G, and actually
>>>> should
>>>> be considering increasing it, because hard times tend to reduce
>>>> sponsorship.
>>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> I would like to note that Lorenzo and the Barcelona team signed up for
>>> the
>>> conference under particular assumptions about the level of profit they
>>> are
>>> expected to produce for OSGeo (I wish I had the details of this at my
>>> fingers - can anyone point to them)?
>>>
>>> I think it would be unfair to retroactively expect a substantially larger
>>> planned profit from FOSS4G 2010 if that goes against the LOC's goals.
>>>
>>> That said as a board we have a responsibility to review and approve a
>>> budget
>>> for 2010 which I don't *think* we have done yet (have we?).  It seems
>>> like this
>>> is the right time to review the budget, possibly request adjustments and
>>> then approve it.
>>>
>>>  > From: Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
>>>  >
>>>  > OK, nevermind the budget: on what basis are we reducing our pricing by
>>>  > 25%? Because we like a challenge?
>>>
>>> Possibly because the LOC feel it can meet it's profit goal while
>>> garnering
>>> a larger involvement through offering a lower price.
>>>
>>> All the above said, Paul is definitely the voice of experience, and
>>> tuning
>>> of the pricing might well be in order.
>>>
>>> One thing that has been contemplated in the past, but was generally not
>>> considered financially viable, was to have some slush money in the
>>> conference budget to pay for travel costs or at least "comped" conference
>>> fees for some worthy attendies who wouldn't normally make it.  This
>>> might include students, or valuable presenters who wouldn't otherwise be
>>> able to make it.  If we have slack in the conference budget, we might
>>> consider trying to do something like that this year with the hope of
>>> making
>>> it a better event by doing so.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>
>> I see no reason to lower the rates either (((at least as long as we make
>> this a big commercial event with a large budget as we did in the past years.
>> I still believe that we could do much more moderate, but that is another
>> discussion altogether) and might lead to the formation of a co located
>> real-geek sub-conference when FOSS4g grows too large) but time will show,
>> lets have a few more iterations).
>>
>> I would not call it slush money or slack in the conference budget but
>> funds that could be used to drop conference fees for officers of OSGeo who
>> might otherwise not make it. Can you hear me chime into the f2f suggestion
>> again? FOSS4G is the meeting of the tribes and there are folks beyond the
>> board who lead committees and chair software projects. We might want to get
>> together once a year, else chances are high we loose track. So if we can
>> expect any extra money I suggest to use it to get people to FOSS4G who are
>> active in the community.
>>
>> But I want to stress again that it is the Local Chapter that will decide
>> on these things, we are only throwing out ideas in the hope that they help
>> make a great conference.
>>
>>
>> Lorenzo,
>> from all my experience I suggest to take what you can get all the time.
>> Spending extra money is easy and if it ends up on the OSGeo or OSGeo ES
>> account it will be put to good use. Alguien dijo Libro SIG...?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> --
>> Arnulf Christl
>> President OSGeo
>> http://www.osgeo.org
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