On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 15:35 +0000, Tim Couper wrote: > The last Europython editions the conference days were > something like: tutorials ( usualy saturday and sunday ) - > main conference - sprints. Attendance numbers during tutorials > days were about 1/8 compared to the main conference. Same for > sprints. Probably because of those activies being held during > weekends or at the end of a long conference run ( wich can be > hard ). > > > FWIW we can't be sure that this is necessarily the reason (although it > could be!).. it could be because attendees did not want to participate > in the tutorials and sprints (rather than the choice of days). Without > good data, it's difficult to come to a conclusion. > > > One approach might be to use this conference (and maybe ask the PyCon > guys too) to have an appropriately worded questionnaire to find out > the reasons why people do/do not choose the tutorials/sprints .. and > perhaps also about the preferred duration of the conference. Making > big changes to timings at *this* conference unfortunately coincides > with the change of location from sunny B'ham to sunnier Florence, so > it will be similarly difficult to draw conclusions if both the timings > and location are changed :-)
I think you can separate the two factors by comparing the numbers of conference tickets. If conference tickets raise by 10% (eg) compared to 2010, and training tickets raise by 30%, it's easier to see that the new formula worked out better than the previous one. If the two deltas stay almost the same, it means that the new formula was almost a wash all in all. There are also further differences that one will have also to modulate; for instance, even if we kept the current structure, people might find further incentives to join trainings thanks to the availability of interesting (to them) tours of the city as part of the parter program, which is planned to begin on Saturday 18th anyway in case people want to come earlier with the family and visit the city before the conference begins. IMO organizing two days of trainings in a 600-people venue for a grand total of 48 delegates (as in EP2010) is not a very good usage of both venue costs and volunteer time. And having trainings in the same schedule of talks is a good incentive to join. Especially if we also sell single entrances to each training, which is something that we are also pondering about. And yes, adding questions to this extent to the feedback form is a good idea anyway. -- Giovanni Bajo :: ra...@develer.com Develer S.r.l. :: http://www.develer.com My Blog: http://giovanni.bajo.it Last post: Compile-time Function Execution in D _______________________________________________ Europython-improve mailing list Europython-improve@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython-improve
