Il giorno 17/gen/2012, alle ore 23:27, M.-A. Lemburg ha scritto: > Fabio Pliger wrote: >> 2012/1/17 Giovanni Bajo <ra...@develer.com> >> >>> >>>>> >>>>> _Note:_ I'm not including tickets revenue in this consideration as we >>> decided >>>>> that we wanted a conference affordable to everybody keeping the prices >>> as low >>>>> as we could. Thus tickets average revenue was almost 0. >>>> >>>> I think there's still some room to ramp up the tickets prices in >>>> order to make the budget look healthier. EuroPython is the second >>>> most important Python conference we have, right after PyCon US, >>>> so you can safely use their (low) prices are guideline: >>>> >>>> https://us.pycon.org/2012/registration/ >>>> >>>> Capping the number of attendees as you've done in 2011 and starting >>>> registration early is also a good way to make you feel more secure about >>>> the numbers. >>> >>> Ticket price is always a hard call :) >>> >>> Since we've sold out in 2011, and most people seem to be very satisfied >>> with the event, I think that it would sound reasonable to increase >>> prices, since we might expect more people willing to come, and at the >>> same time we can't really host 1000 people in the venue anyway (as much >>> as we would like to). >>> >>> On the other hand, I like the idea of keeping the price low and >>> affordable for everybody, but maybe we should probably work more on >>> grants to help that side of the problem. I actually like the PyCon US >>> model of "everybody pays and everybody can ask for a grant", but I'm >>> split about it. >>> >> >> I do agree that it's hard take decisions on this. My heart says to keep >> prices low (at least for students) but... my mind disagrees. Probably we >> should apply more of the Pycon US model on Europython. > > Agreed. My observation in recent years is that Python is losing > some traction with students. Having students pay low fees will > hopefully help a bit to fix that again. > > For other attendees, I think that raising the ticket prices by > say 25-50% wouldn't hurt much - travel and hotel costs > are much higher compared to conference fees - even less so, if > they'd knew that EPC is using the money to fund attendees > which do have a problem raising the money.
BTW we are working on hotel costs. We would like to offer a managed way to do room sharing through the website shop, so that you can buy a bed in a double/triple/quadruple room in the conference hotel and get a good rate. > >>>> I also wonder how we could help in getting the number of sponsors >>>> bumped up to higher levels. >>> >>> One thing that really strikes us as very odd is that there is a large >>> difference in the amount of money that companies seem willing to invest, >>> compared to PyCon US. This is especially glaring when it happens to be >>> the *same* companies investing something like five times more in PyCon >>> US compared to EuroPython. >>> >>> I think that part of this can be justified with the USA being sort of >>> the core of technology in these days, so it might be that the total >>> amount of business being done in USA is so larger than Europe that it >>> reflects also in our sponsorships; moreover, for recruiting, it might be >>> easier for company to recruit among developers living in a single >>> country (USA) rather than living across several different countries >>> (Europe). >>> >>> So I think the first thing that would help is that the PSF could push >>> EuroPython sponsorships packs to PyCon USA sponsors. We might be still >>> in time for this, but I think it would work better if EuroPython >>> sponsorships were proposed together with PyCon US sponsorship; like "buy >>> this pack and with X% extra you can be present in Europe as well". Food >>> for thought for next year. >>> >> >> I've thought about it many many times and everytime I end up not finding a >> satisfying solution for this topic. I'd really love to find a solution for >> this but at the moment we couldn't do this ( i guess ). Let me clarify. >> Europython is organized by non profit associations ( Python Italia, Pycon >> UK, etc.. ) that reinvest any profit to next year conference edition. >> Pycon, on the other hand, is organized by the PSF and the conference >> profits ( and losses ) go to the PSF. Pycon is one of the most important >> economic resources for the PSF as well. Pycon US and the PSF are tied >> together. The PSF then uses the money from Pycon to help other python >> conferences and communities with grants and sponsorships ( just like it did >> for Europython and all the other Pycons around the world ). With these >> premises, how can we find a way to build up sponsorship packs among both >> conferences? I'm CCing this email to Jesse Noller who can speak for Pycon >> organizers team on this. >> >> One consideration has to be done. With the Pycon sponsors stack overflow >> this year it'd be a good occasion to take contacts with those sponsors that >> didn't come in time. > > I'm not sure how well such sponsorship packs would work. The culture > in the US and Europe is very different - even within companies that > have offices in both places, e.g. MS, Oracle, IBM, etc. > > What I think does work, is taking the fact that a company invests > in PyCon US and using that when building up the relationship with the > European branch. > > Once you know that a company is using Python successfully > internally, you already have a good chance to talk them into > sponsoring a conference - in order to find more talents to > help them to do even more Python. > > However, getting that bit of information is difficult and finding > the right contact even more. > > Also, as Jesse mentioned in another thread, simply taking a list > of contact addresses will not work out (and risks spoiling the > contact altogether). Instead it is better to build on existing > relationships and have the respective parties introduce > you as possible sponsorship opportunity. I wouldn't want a bare list of contacts either; it works much better if we could get introduced directly to the right contact within each company, as you suggest. That's something we would surely appreciate, since (as you say) it's hard to get the right contact especially in large companies. For smaller companies that you know use Python or have been sponsors in past PyCons, it's usually sufficient to just send an email somewhere, and it's worked quite well in the past I would like to clarify that we don't have a "real" sponsor problem. Last year we have made €61K+VAT in sponsorships and €100K+VAT in tickets, and the numbers are just about right for the current size of the event. Obviously, more sponsors is always better since it means more grants, more activities, and so on. I raised the sponsorship question because I am partly baffled at the difference in quantity between US and EU. > >>>> A lot of companies are looking for Python >>>> developers, so recruiting is certainly one of the key arguments for >>>> sponsors to invest in EuroPython. >>> >>> Recruiting works very well; our sponsorship packs are divided by >>> sponsorship goals instead of being raising levels, and the recruiting >>> packs are surely very popular. >>> >>> We did a recruiting session, and we got very positive feedback from the >>> companies that joined it (both immediately at the event and afterwards), >>> but maybe there's something more we can do for facilitate recruiting? >>> >>>> Another is product announcements >>>> and presentation. Perhaps you could make those two aspects (even) more >>>> interesting for sponsors in order to attract more sponsors. >>>> Another argument I often hear from smaller companies is that >>>> manning a booth at the conference is too costly for them >>>> (not because of the booth signup fee, but because of the >>>> staffing costs). Perhaps having a poster session or some >>>> flat panel LCDs in the conference halls for unmanned >>>> presentation would help make sponsoring more interesting to >>>> those companies ?! >>> >>> Yes, that's an idea. For companies that can't join the conference we >>> usually suggest to prepare a brochure for the conference bag, but maybe >>> the poster session is something we should attempt (for both sponsors and >>> regular partecipants). >>> >> >> +1 > > There are also some other ways you could consider to increase > sponsorship revenue: > > * talk to previous sponsors to have them sign up as launch > sponsors, i.e. sponsors that also benefit from the extra attention > they'll get by already being on the web page when the 2012 > edition is launched > > * social event/party sponsoring (e.g. an after > work party for conference attendees, a free sight seeing tour, > a wine tasting event, etc.) > > * have talk video pre- and post-rolls (like e.g. the TED videos do) > > * ads in the conference brochure (this only works if you have > a high quality printed brochure) > > * possibility for sponsors to rent rooms for demos/shows/recruiting/etc. Thanks; we had evaluated a couple of these in the past, but I'll throw them in as food for thought for this year! -- Giovanni Bajo :: ra...@develer.com Develer S.r.l. :: http://www.develer.com My Blog: http://giovanni.bajo.it
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
_______________________________________________ Europython-improve mailing list Europython-improve@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython-improve
