I'd actually rather cap the number of attendees than raise prices.
I find this an unfortunate line of though; EuroPython is the *only*
explicitly European Python conference. Keeping it artificially small
just makes it either less interesting or simply elitist.
EP is one of the cheapest conferences I’ve attended so far (only
beaten by RuPy 2012 which is much shorter and took place at an
University in a cheap country). Comparing prices from now and *seven*
years ago is neither fair nor reasonable. The same goes for attendance
numbers: the Python community in 2014 is very different from the one in
2008.
I very much prefer the current approach of growing and giving out grants
to people who can’t afford attending on their own than denying the
EP–experience to hundreds of people completely.
I think the most interesting people to meet at the conferences in
general have
a limited budget. The come to the conference on their own tab to tell
the
world about the cool things they are doing in their spare time.
I don’t believe such a correlation – or even causality! – exists.
If you find their talks more interesting, it falls under “personal
preferences” for which it’s important to have a diverse schedule.
That said, grants can make sure that such interesting people are able to
attend anyway.
We used to be able to pay travel for speakers coming from South
America and
the Far East. I see this as far more important than having as many
attendees
as possible.
I can’t follow this reasoning. I always saw EP as Europe’s premier
get-together of Python devotees that was interesting enough to attract a
significant crowd from outside. Optimizing a conference called
“*Euro*Python” for South American attendees seems rather backward to
me (again: grants).
***
The EPS will have to decide whether they just want to be a cheap
get-together for a small cabal or Europe’s answer to PyCon US/NA. If
it’s the former, I can only hope an alternative will form from within
the organizers of the past years. We have enough cheap and small
conferences; the hard task is to run a big one in a proper way without
ripping people off O’Reilly-style.
—h
P.S. I’m not affiliated with anyone involved in this discussion, this
is just my 2 cents as someone who attended all three EPs in Florence as
well as other – cheap – conferences.
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