2012/1/18 Douglas Napoleone <doug.napole...@gmail.com> > On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 4:01 PM, Fabio Pliger <fabio.pli...@gmail.com> > 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. > > This is a very hard balance to make, and depends largely on the > Sponsorship level available. For PyCon US we created a 'Corporate' > level of registration which we do not take a loss on, while all other > levels of registration represent a loss for the conference. We have a > substantial contingent of corporate attendance. That is it is the > corporations which are paying for their employees to attend, and they > can afford to spend a bit more to subsidize the conference for > everyone else. EuroPython does the same thing, but the differential > between the levels is higher for PyCon US (if my exchange rate math is > correct). In the end we have Corporate, Hobbiest, and Student rates, > and we try to have a good mix between them to keep that section of the > budget sheet balanced. One corporate registration will cover the loss > on ~1.5 Students attending or ~2 Hobbiests at non-earlybird rates. The > margins are half that on earlybird. As the bulk of our attendance is > earlybird registrants, we make up the remaining difference in > sponsorship. > > The Grant money then comes from the sponsorship pool. The better the > sponsorship, the more we can grant. The key here is that each free > registration costs the conference more than the opportunity loss, due > to the attendance cap, so the budget projections get messy. That is in > the budget, we allocate how many free registrations we expect to give > out, and then subtract that from the projected registration revenue in > the budget, so each grant registration really costs closer to 2 > registrations on our P&L sheet. In the end it is just book keeping, > but it can make your head hurt. Having a good system for managing your > budget, and staying on top of it is critical. > > So it's not far from what we have been doing. The big difference I see here is that we probably expose ourselves a little more keeping students and hobbiests prices lower and doint less grantes instead of keeping them heigher and then using the extra profit on grants as well.
> > >> > I also wonder how we could help in getting the number of sponsors > >> > bumped up to higher levels. > >> > > 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. > This has been discussed at both the organizers list, and switching my > hats, at the PSF board level as well. The accounting makes it neigh > impossible to pool the sponsorship inflow. As you say, we can only > really have the money that is feed into the PSF via PyCon and other > sources, back out to other non-profits like EuroPython, PyCon AU, and > all the other conferences via sponsorship packages from those > conferences. We already do this whenever possible, but the PSF is > limited in the funds we have on hand and must stay within its budget. > PyCon US, while it is getting historic levels of sponsorship, also has > historic costs due to the new location, which is a draw for > sponsorship, and the increased size. With that said, it is the plan of > the PSF to use any profit from the conference for funding other > conferences world wide as well as other incubator projects. > Mmm.. I have some thoughts about this. I'll try to put them together in a sane maner and start a discussion on the PSF members list. > > > 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. > This is a very sticky issue, which there have been many conversations > on. I will let Jesse Noller address this. Some private communications > with the relevant people on the EuroPython end is most likely the best > channel for this. > Great. We've started a discussion with Jesse, Yannick and VanL many months ago about sharing as much as we can between EPC and Pycon US but then both I and Jesse had our families growing ( and family needs with it ) so the discussion has passed in second place. I'll recover it and include you all. I think we can start from there. -- Fabio Pliger *linkedin* http://it.linkedin.com/in/fabiopliger *twitter* http://twitter.com/b_smoke
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