On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 12:39:14PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote: > > I would personally add that, given the current economic circumstances, it > > might be reasonable to consider forgoing the day trip as a formal event > > within DebConf. I gather that sponsorship has already been tight as of the > > previous DebConf owing to sponsors tightening their belts, and it might be > > wise for us to consider doing the same. > > Well, we could do it like in previous year(s?), where the participants > payed. I think having a social, non hacking activity in the big room is a > very good thing.
I agree that the social aspects of DebConf are important. But I also wonder if dedicating a full day of the conference to a day trip doesn't appear frivolous to would-be sponsors, especially in these times: if the sponsors don't have the same perspective wrt the social factor, they could see this as "getting less for their investment", even if it's the case that attendees pay their own way for the day trip. > > > Attendees that register late (after April 15th) will need to pay at least > > > the Professional fee (EUR 300). > > May I ask why this is? Late planners are already hit with the double > > penalty of higher plane ticket prices and ineligibility for sponsorship; is > > there some inherent reason that it's less possible to permit free > > attendance for those who plan later? > We've done the same at Debconf8 (and btw we reserve the right to lower the > price ;-) It is done, so we can calculate our budget and people can still > attend after we fixed it. > "ineligibility for sponsorship" is exactly that. If you register late, you > dont get sponsorship. No travel sponsorship, but also no food or accomodation > sponsorhip. It's not as if registering early is hard. (Or that we have a > penalty for people registering and then canceling, like a month before. (But > we will penalty people canceling late or not at all. Probably just by taking > a note to decrease their chances for travel sponsoring the next year, but > still.)) Can you please clarify whether the 300€ "registration fee" *includes* food and accomodations? My impression from what I read was that it does not, which is why it seems unreasonable to me that late registrants would have to pay such a sum for registration in addition to paying their own room and board, when AFAICS the venue costs are largely fixed. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ [email protected] [email protected] _______________________________________________ Debconf-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-discuss
