[FOSS4G2016] [OSGeo-Conf] added risk analysis for FOSS4G in budget plannings

[Cameron Shorter]

Hi Till,
One more thing. You will have people register early. In particular, you 
will have many people register by the early bird deadline.

At the a certain point, probably the early bird deadline you should 
commit to cancelling or not. (This is what we did with FOSS4G 2009).

We noted that our maximum exposure was ~ $65,000 at early bird, if no 
one else registered, and if we cut key costs. (You might remember that 
delegates didn't get a shirt that year. We were also seriously 
considering not paying for delegates' food during the conference.).

So you should be able to say:

At early bird, if we don't get XXX registrations, we will cancel.
If we only get XXX registrations, we potentially will expose OSGeo to 
$YYY (and we will have a no frills conference without zzz)

Cheers, Cameron


On 25/08/2015 11:15 pm, till.adams at fossgis.de wrote:
> Dear Conference Committee,
>
> as promised, I've done a rough estimation about our pre-conference 
> costs to be payed in advance in case of a complete cancellation.
>
> For those interested in the real numbers, I uploaded a new folder in 
> foss4g-2016's SVN called "budgetp_planning" with an updated budget 
> planning sheet derived from our proposal. The costs there are not full 
> updated yet, but the big cost factors are up-to-date.
> At the end I added a section "risk analysis" (from line 123 on) where 
> I listed the big cost-factors and what the contractor will charge in 
> case of full cancellation (e.g. conference center, caterer, PCO, ship 
> charter and ship catering for the gala event, band). I also added an 
> amount of 20k for "incalculables", which is just an estimation from me 
> and not based on anything.
>
> Then I calcualted the percentages we have to pay for the scenario full 
> cancel 6, 3, 2, 1 month before the event. The numbers are amazing, I'd 
> like to have the "1 month before event" on my personal bank account ;-).
> All this, I've calcualted with a summed up VAT of 13%, as I am quite 
> sure, that we'll get some of the bigger costs down to the 7% VAT, as 
> lined out in our proposal. So I took the normal 19% and the reduced 7% 
> together and divided by 2.
>
> In short, these are the gross numbers:
> cancel 6 month before event:  62.000 €
> cancel 3 month before event:  81.500 €
> cancel 2 month before event: 104.000 €
> cancel 1 month before event: 354.000 €
>
> As said, these are worse scenarios, especially under the assumption, 
> that we really have to pay 100% for conference center - I did not 
> debate this, as my contact there is on holidays, but that's what their 
> general terms and conditions say.
>
>
> I did only perform a quick risk analysis based on less attendees than 
> the lined out 685 as the actual break even point. Everybody may do 
> this just by taking our sheet and play with the numbers of attendees.
>
> My first fixed perception from these numbers is:
> We can't cancel the event 1 month before. In case of this, we'd have 
> to take the risk, that we'll have less attendees than expected. If we 
> get at least 300 attendees, we'll have the same loss, than we'd have 
> in case of full cancellation 2 month before.
> FYI: For FOSSGIS conferences we had >500 attendees in 2014 and 460 in 
> 2015...
>
>
> Taking all this into account, Bonn's LOC would like to have a 
> liablility from OSGeo for 100.000 € or, in case of a less guaranteered 
> amount, we'll have to find other ways (insurance) to assure us (= our 
> local chapter FOSSGIS e.V.). In return, we of course offer to transfer 
> the bulk of the net return after all costs to OSGeo - this also 
> because we see and know, that FOSS4G is an OSGeo event and the major 
> income source for OSGeo.
>
> Reagarding the newest discussion on the conference list, we are most 
> "option 3", especially because all work done by LOC is voluntary work.
> Further details to be discussed.
>
>
> Regards, Till
>
>
>
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Cameron Shorter,
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LISAsoft
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