Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Samuel Klein]

I like this idea, Iolanda. It makes sense to have more people attend the
conference proper than buy into catering and parties.  And also makes sense
to let the whole world listen to the lectures.

Though for events that are expected to be oversold, you might need another
solution, since not everyone will fit in the main room.  But there can be
overflow rooms streaming the session for everyone.

Sam.

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Iolanda Pensa  wrote:
> I have looked at past editions[1].
> In general there have been differences of registration costs for
participants (mainly a difference between Wikimedia contributor with
username or not), but the registration cost never covered the actual cost
per participant (including catering, participant package and parties - the
costs that normally registration costs cover).
>
> personally I think:
> * attending the conference and its sessions should be free (it is the
Plato legacy and also in Italy universities do the same: you don't pay to
listen, you pay for additional services :) The only payment which might be
necessary is only if an insurance is needed (and the cost would be the cost
of the personal insurence only).
> * services should be covered by the registration fee: catering,
participant package and parties. This also means that there should be much
more scholarships available (for volunteers, contributors, people we want
to target specifically).
> * general costs (i.e. venue, technical, promotional materials,
communication, keynotes) should be covered by sponsors and donors.
>
> this system is much more transparent. People can attend the conference
without having lunch in the venue (a sandwich in a cafe or a self-service
menu is always cheaper than the catering), without a printed booklet and
t-shirt and without going to the party. Also if they do not use those
services, in any case they will have to register (this facilitates the
planning).
> At the same time scholarship and institutions normally cover registration
costs; this means that staff from chapters, WMF, universities and
institutions attending Wikimania will cover a reasonable cost per person
(and indeed they will not benefit from not covering those costs).
>
> Registration could be 200 $ (for 3 lunches 30$ each, the participant's
package 10$, and two parties 50 $ each).
> Higher registration costs (differences between pre-registration and
registration and between institutions and volunteers/contributors) can be
used to contribute to scholarships.
> iolanda / iopensa
>
> [1] The data available are not very precise but here is a comparative
summery https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Comparative#Registrationand
you can find in the upper menu the details for each conference when
information are available.
>
> Il giorno 23/mar/2014, alle ore 00:21, Samuel Klein 
ha scritto:
>
>> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
>> low. I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
>> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>>
>> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
>> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
>> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
>> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
>> ensure how many tickets of each type there are. Last-minute tickets
>> are more expensive.
>>
>> This has a few benefits:
>> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
>> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
>> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
>> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
>> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
>> people attending the event.
>> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>>
>> Warmly,
>> Sam
>>
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>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Iolanda Pensa]

I have looked at past editions[1].
In general there have been differences of registration costs for participants 
(mainly a difference between Wikimedia contributor with username or not), but 
the registration cost never covered the actual cost per participant (including 
catering, participant package and parties - the costs that normally 
registration costs cover).

personally I think:
* attending the conference and its sessions should be free (it is the Plato 
legacy and also in Italy universities do the same: you don’t pay to listen, you 
pay for additional services :) The only payment which might be necessary is 
only if an insurance is needed (and the cost would be the cost of the personal 
insurence only). 
* services should be covered by the registration fee: catering, participant 
package and parties. This also means that there should be much more 
scholarships available (for volunteers, contributors, people we want to target 
specifically).
* general costs (i.e. venue, technical, promotional materials, communication, 
keynotes) should be covered by sponsors and donors.

this system is much more transparent. People can attend the conference without 
having lunch in the venue (a sandwich in a cafe or a self-service menu is 
always cheaper than the catering), without a printed booklet and t-shirt and 
without going to the party. Also if they do not use those services, in any case 
they will have to register (this facilitates the planning).
At the same time scholarship and institutions normally cover registration 
costs; this means that staff from chapters, WMF, universities and institutions 
attending Wikimania will cover a reasonable cost per person (and indeed they 
will not benefit from not covering those costs).

Registration could be 200 $ (for 3 lunches 30$ each, the participant’s package 
10$, and two parties 50 $ each).
Higher registration costs (differences between pre-registration and 
registration and between institutions and volunteers/contributors) can be used 
to contribute to scholarships.
iolanda / iopensa

[1] The data available are not very precise but here is a comparative summery 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania/Comparative#Registration and you can 
find in the upper menu the details for each conference when information are 
available.

Il giorno 23/mar/2014, alle ore 00:21, Samuel Klein  ha 
scritto:

> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
> 
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
> 
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
> 
> Warmly,
> Sam
> 
> ___
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> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Manuel Schneider]

Am 24.03.2014 14:45, schrieb Federico Leva (Nemo):
> to "deliver" (usually a presentation, because it's the obvious thing).

thanks, yes: I have heard about this last year in fact. A Wikimedian
criticed that there were scholarships for people "who do not even give a
talk".
I found this funny, like having a conference where everyone is talking
and nobody listening.

Now I see that this was not just a single weird mind but is actually a
real problem.


/Manuel
-- 
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Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Manuel Schneider, 24/03/2014 11:07:

I fully agree with that and want to support that. Since several years I
am fighting an invisible war against "programmeritis" Wikimania has
fallen for.

* have less talks, focus on quality and that people are actually able to
digest the information - less is more!


+1
The counterpart to (falsely) conveying the idea that Wikimania 
attendance has near-zero cost for attendees (both in terms of finance 
and personal effort/involvement) is that many people, to get financial 
support, are forced by the respective organisations/funders to prove 
they're going to "get stuff done", to "deliver" (usually a presentation, 
because it's the obvious thing).
Instead, we shold have a Wikimania in which we believe enough as to 
consider it valuable in itself and where people only do stuff they're 
truly engaged in.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Deryck Chan]

There's an important question which hasn't been asked in this thread so
far: Wikimania 2014 will be big and outreach-focused, with plans for a
parallel "wikifest". How will the ticket price of Wikifest compare to
Wikimania?

A random idea from me: maybe we should make wikifest more like a museum
exhibition, without complementary food, so we can keep the price low? If
they want included food, they can pay extra for the non-Wikimedian ticket
to Wikimania.
On 24 Mar 2014 20:35, "Andrew Gray"  wrote:

> As a quick note, the ticket prices for GLAM-Wiki in 2013 were set in
> two tiers - simply "individual" and "institutional", and we left it to
> people to figure out what they felt was appropriate in their case. I
> don't think there was a "Wikimedian" rate, but this was implicitly who
> we were targeting with "individual".
>
> Both were probably below-cost, at £20 and £50 (?) for two days, but I
> don't have a copy of the calculations to hand to be sure by how much -
> in any case, the only major cost was that of catering for two days, as
> the venue and technical support were covered either by the BL or WMUK,
> and a part-contribution to the cost of speakers travel.
>
> One issue that might be worth bearing in mind is that a below-cost
> ticket for Wikimania 2014 might well cost substantially more than an
> above-cost ticket for Wikimania 2005 - as Wikimania has grown, it's
> being run at a pretty high standard and the costs are no doubt
> climbing to match. If we want a cheaper conference - should we be
> scaling back to something less expensive and less professional?
>
> Andrew.
>
>
> On 23 March 2014 01:54, Deryck Chan  wrote:
> > Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
> > for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
> > there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I
> should
> > remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
> > prices:
> >
> > 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still
> effectively
> > slightly subsidised)
> > 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
> > who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
> > 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
> > attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings
> unless
> > their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them
> to
> > go to *more* Wikimanias.
> > 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)
> >
> > In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise
> > the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
> > Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
> > consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
> > (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
> > more!
> >
> > Deryck
> >
> > Deryck
> >
> > On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:
> >>
> >> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most
> members
> >> of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid
> many
> >> hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to
> attend,
> >> on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their own
> annual
> >> leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on behalf
> of
> >> their employer.
> >>
> >> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
> >> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost
> an
> >> order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.
>  (These
> >> prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the
> >> Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This
> conference
> >> is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas
> Wikimania
> >> is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Charles
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour
> >>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
> >>> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we
> felt
> >>> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the
> people
> >>> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
> >>>
> >>> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't
> offer
> >>> various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship"
> registration
> >>> for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student
> registration, etc.
> >>>
> >>> Sincerely,
> >>> Nicholas Michael Bashour
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>
> >>> > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
> >>> >
> >>> > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> >>> > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. C

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Andrew Gray]

As a quick note, the ticket prices for GLAM-Wiki in 2013 were set in
two tiers - simply "individual" and "institutional", and we left it to
people to figure out what they felt was appropriate in their case. I
don't think there was a "Wikimedian" rate, but this was implicitly who
we were targeting with "individual".

Both were probably below-cost, at £20 and £50 (?) for two days, but I
don't have a copy of the calculations to hand to be sure by how much -
in any case, the only major cost was that of catering for two days, as
the venue and technical support were covered either by the BL or WMUK,
and a part-contribution to the cost of speakers travel.

One issue that might be worth bearing in mind is that a below-cost
ticket for Wikimania 2014 might well cost substantially more than an
above-cost ticket for Wikimania 2005 - as Wikimania has grown, it's
being run at a pretty high standard and the costs are no doubt
climbing to match. If we want a cheaper conference - should we be
scaling back to something less expensive and less professional?

Andrew.


On 23 March 2014 01:54, Deryck Chan  wrote:
> Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
> for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
> there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should
> remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
> prices:
>
> 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still effectively
> slightly subsidised)
> 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
> who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
> 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
> attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
> their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
> go to *more* Wikimanias.
> 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)
>
> In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise
> the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
> Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
> consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
> (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
> more!
>
> Deryck
>
> Deryck
>
> On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:
>>
>> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most members
>> of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid many
>> hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to attend,
>> on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their own annual
>> leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on behalf of
>> their employer.
>>
>> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
>> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost an
>> order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.  (These
>> prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the
>> Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This conference
>> is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas Wikimania
>> is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Charles
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
>>> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt
>>> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
>>> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
>>>
>>> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer
>>> various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration
>>> for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Nicholas Michael Bashour
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
>>> >
>>> > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
>>> > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
>>> > run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>>> >
>>> > In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
>>> > person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
>>> > local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
>>> > community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
>>> > ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
>>> > are more expensive.
>>> >
>>> > This has a few benefits:
>>> > * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
>>> > * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
>>> > * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Manuel Schneider]

Hi Stephan,

Am 23.03.2014 09:51, schrieb Stephan Schulz:
> On the other hand, I would prefer to have a tighter, more
> focussed, and better structured program. Breaks should
> be breaks, sessions should be strictly time-boxed, session
> chairs should be in control of timing, and maybe the rate
> of acceptance of talks should be stricter. While I
> like the bazaar-like atmosphere, it made it very hard to
> get to talks in time, and very frustrating for speakers
> who had to deal with large audience fluctuations much of

I fully agree with that and want to support that. Since several years I
am fighting an invisible war against "programmeritis" Wikimania has
fallen for.

* have less talks, focus on quality and that people are actually able to
digest the information - less is more!

* have a clear, simple schedule. Not several talks in the same slot. It
is unmanagable, the time is never shared fairly, people can hardly move
between talks happening in the same slot. So you are bound to decide for
one slot and than hear all two / three talks before the next break where
you can move again.

In the conferences I have organized my worked with a very simple schedule:
* every slot is exactly one hour, but the talks are only 45 minutes, the
rest is headroom for discussions, break time, time to move rooms,
prepare the next talk etc.

* workshop may last several slots to allow a more indepth-treatment of a
topic

* to make up for the time there are no coffee breaks etc. - instead
coffee and drinks are available in a free space somewhere near the
workshop rooms, so people can
a) have a drink or snack whenever they want
b) we save the time for these breaks
c) less crowded cafeteria / buffets as people come at different times

* to allow people to relax one could think about an afternoon break
where deliberately nothing is being offered, that allows people to
really have a break - and they don't even need to rush to the cafeteria
to get their coffee in that time, we normally scheduled 30 minutes for
that in midway between Lunch and Dinner

* to cater for informal / on the spot meetings an "Open Space" was
offered, a session room adjacent to the other rooms, ideally right next
to the coffee buffet, where one can put a pinboard in an area everyone
walks by several times during the day. Cards, felt-tip pens, pins and a
printed schedule with empty slots are being provided. So people write
down their topic and "schedule" it by pinning it in one of the empty
slots. Instead of having meetings right on the spot and somewhere on the
floor in the hallway, they are a bit more structured, allow for some
time to gather people, other people can become interested and join and a
real, quite session room with proper chairs and tables can be used for
an efficient meeting.

This concept in has lead to less stressful conferences. People are more
free what to do, when to relax and have a coffee and are more
concetrated during the actual sessions - which also have a bit more
time. It has also shown that there is only little problems with sessions
taking to long, blowing up the schedule, because there is enough
headroom to absorb this.


/Manuel
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Edward Saperia]

I am told London is one of the cheapest cities in the world to get to, and
the European community is very large; I am hoping we can convene more of
the community than has ever been in one place before. Certainly the higher
the ticket price, the fewer people will attend, and in fact the WMF has
given us strict limits on our maximum prices. I am very proud to be able to
offer a cheap tickets, but it's meant that we're spending a lot of our time
working on fundraising (which is not as straightforward a process as it
sounds, as it turns out corporate sponsors don't particularly care about
supporting The Mission), and depending on our fundraising success various
aspects of the event may not be as good or professional as they could be:
it turns out catering companies don't particularly care about supporting
The Mission either.

Given the size of the community as a whole, I continue to be amazed at how
small the conference has historically been. Wikimedia is a fascinating
thing, so much so that millions of people have volunteered their time to
take part. My hypothesis is that there are large groups of Wikimedia
participants who are not really aware of the conference, or for one reason
or another do not feel welcome to attend, or are unsure of whether the
content will be interesting to them; perhaps some people edit articles
about a certain subject because they are interested in that subject, not
because they're interested in the act of editing. Wikimania - at least from
my impressions of HongKong - is really a conference about meta, which makes
sense. What else would Wikimedians discuss when they are together except
for what it means to be Wikimedian?

A lot of the work I have been doing over the past year has been trying to
unpack what "meta wikimedia" is, for people who either haven't really
considered it in abstract terms, or for people who are interested in the
structure and process of knowledge but have never considered Wikimedia to
be relevant to them (e.g. librarians, data scientists, etc) - this train of
thought lead to this Wikimania's five themes; Social Machines, The Future
of Education, Free Culture, Open Scholarship and Open Data. They're the
most concise expression I could find for the subjects that were discussed
at Wikimania last year, using only words non-wiki*edians would understand.

Something I'm very keen to do this year is have high quality livestreams of
the talks, and have the recordings edited and posted online as quickly as
possible. I am sure the number of people who would be interested in
watching these talks far exceeds those who are able and willing to
physically travel to the event. I would very much like to advertise these
livestreams during the conference as centralnotices, but the infrastructure
to do this and support the resulting traffic might be something that we
can't afford.

I'm not really sure if this answered your question... just some thoughts
I've been mulling over recently.

*Edward Saperia*
Chief Coordinator Wikimania London 
email  * facebook
 * twitter  * 07796955572
133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG


On 24 March 2014 05:12, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Thanks Ed.  Since I know your team has thought a lot about who you want to
> attract: a restating of Lodewijk's Q: how do you expect your pricing to
> influence who attends, from the city / region / around the world?
> On Mar 23, 2014 9:24 AM, "Edward Saperia"  wrote:
>
>> A word from the trenches;
>>
>> I am very keen to keep Wikimania prices low. It's not quite decided yet,
>> but I think our ticket prices will be less than $100, which compared to any
>> conference of comparable size is absurdly low; it would be worth buying a
>> ticket for the catering alone. It's not unusual for large conferences to
>> cost fifty times this.
>>
>> However, for the past six months a significant amount of the (volunteer)
>> Wikimania team's time has been dedicated to fundraising, so there is a cost
>> to this.
>>
>> *Edward Saperia*
>> Chief Coordinator Wikimania London 
>> email  * 
>> facebook
>>  * twitter  * 07796955572
>> 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG
>>
>>
>> On 23 March 2014 22:03, Lodewijk  wrote:
>>
>>> As Wikimedia movement, we have the luxury to approach this question
>>> backwards. Instead of thinking about how we will pay for the event (we have
>>> many sponsorship opportunities and even a good amount of donations), we can
>>> look at who we would want to attend the event. We could design our pricing
>>> system such to accommodate that.
>>>
>>> So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
>>> attendance look like?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Lodewijk
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-03-23 13:48 GMT+01:00 maarten deneckere <
>>> maartendeneckere+wikima...@gmail.com>:
>>>
 Two general thoughts that I think are importa

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[aude]

On Mar 23, 2014 8:30 PM, "Manuel Schneider" 
wrote:
>
> Just my two cents on ticket prices for Wikimedia conferences:
>
> * I can confirm with what has been said about other, professional
> conferences. Note the term "professional".
>
> * Having a voluntarily higher price for supportive participants is
> something we could try. We could even try to distinguish between
> Wikimedians (a broader definition than scholarship recipients, eg.
> connected to the voting rights which already define reasonable criteria)
> and "outsiders".

Maybe just add an extra field in the registration form for (optional)
donations? If people want, can pay more. (what they think is worth or
whatever)

We do that for Wikimedia DC chapter memberships, although not sure how many
people put extra donation.

Katie

>
> My personal experience with setting prices for Wikimedia conferences:
> Concerning WikiCon 2012 we were thinking it from the perspective of the
> attendee. We wanted to get people who are not Wikimedians to attend as
> well. So we offered day tickets and set their price according to what we
> thought would be the max of what somebody who doesn't exactly know what
> to expect and is just curious would be willing to pay.
> In that case we came up with 5 EUR, a price level comparable to a visit
> of a mid-level museum or a disco.
> The price for the whole conference was then interpolated from that.
>
> So the question is: What is our target group and what makes sense to
> them to pay?
> * again, splitting between Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians came to my
> mind (how does the LinuxConf.au distinguish whether one is hobbyist or
> professional)?
> * I agree with what has been said on volunteers not willing to have to
> pay for their hobby, if they already contribute so much else, no matter
> what they actually earn.
>
>
> /Manuel
> --
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> Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Manuel Schneider]

Am 23.03.2014 22:08, schrieb Roan Kattouw:
> On Mar 23, 2014 3:30 PM, "Manuel Schneider"
> mailto:manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch>>
> wrote:
>> (how does the LinuxConf.au distinguish whether one is hobbyist or
>> professional)?
> 
> They give additional perks to piratical l professional attendees, like
> more swag, a listing on the web site (IIRC), employer name on badge
> (IIRC) and a ticket to the Professional Delegates Networking Dinner. But
> mostly it's the honor system: people are told that if their employer is
> paying for their attendance, they are expected to get a professional
> ticket, so people paying their own way can get a hobbyist or student
> ticket. In my experience most companies respect this: the honor system
> seems to be working pretty well for them.

thanks for that information.

So back to my question in the last mail: What are our target groups?
Would such a system make sense for us - do we have professional visitors?

On the other hand: offering a "sponsorship attendance fee" would be
something similar for whoever wants.


/Manuel
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Roan Kattouw]

On Mar 23, 2014 3:30 PM, "Manuel Schneider" 
wrote:
> (how does the LinuxConf.au distinguish whether one is hobbyist or
> professional)?

They give additional perks to piratical l professional attendees, like more
swag, a listing on the web site (IIRC), employer name on badge (IIRC) and a
ticket to the Professional Delegates Networking Dinner. But mostly it's the
honor system: people are told that if their employer is paying for their
attendance, they are expected to get a professional ticket, so people
paying their own way can get a hobbyist or student ticket. In my experience
most companies respect this: the honor system seems to be working pretty
well for them.

Roan
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Bence Damokos, 23/03/2014 13:28:

I am not sure it is the right approach to expect attendees to pay the
full price of the per capita conference cost instead of relying on
sponsors and donors to cover the majority of the costs.


It may also not be the right approach to expect attendees to have the 
sort of services they have (accommodation, food etc.) for free. Looking 
close to us, FOSDEM seems to work rather well*, they have no 
registration fee at all but what expenses do they have?** Is their 
"population" so different from ours?


Lodewijk, 23/03/2014 14:03:
> So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
> attendance look like?

Seconded. The Esino Lario bid tries to start from this fundamental 
question by the way. (Though all I said on this thread is just my opinion.)


Nemo

(*) They're also much more efficient than Wikimania, e.g. they publish 
videos in few days.
(**) https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2011-April/001302.html 
says the budget is somewhere on the wiki but not 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:FOSDEM AFAICS.


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Samuel Klein]

Thanks Ed.  Since I know your team has thought a lot about who you want to
attract: a restating of Lodewijk's Q: how do you expect your pricing to
influence who attends, from the city / region / around the world?
On Mar 23, 2014 9:24 AM, "Edward Saperia"  wrote:

> A word from the trenches;
>
> I am very keen to keep Wikimania prices low. It's not quite decided yet,
> but I think our ticket prices will be less than $100, which compared to any
> conference of comparable size is absurdly low; it would be worth buying a
> ticket for the catering alone. It's not unusual for large conferences to
> cost fifty times this.
>
> However, for the past six months a significant amount of the (volunteer)
> Wikimania team's time has been dedicated to fundraising, so there is a cost
> to this.
>
> *Edward Saperia*
> Chief Coordinator Wikimania London 
> email  * facebook
>  * twitter  * 07796955572
> 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG
>
>
> On 23 March 2014 22:03, Lodewijk  wrote:
>
>> As Wikimedia movement, we have the luxury to approach this question
>> backwards. Instead of thinking about how we will pay for the event (we have
>> many sponsorship opportunities and even a good amount of donations), we can
>> look at who we would want to attend the event. We could design our pricing
>> system such to accommodate that.
>>
>> So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
>> attendance look like?
>>
>> Best,
>> Lodewijk
>>
>>
>> 2014-03-23 13:48 GMT+01:00 maarten deneckere <
>> maartendeneckere+wikima...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>> Two general thoughts that I think are important.
>>> Firstly, most attendees will pay the conference fee themselves. You
>>> cannot compare with the general conference where those (high) fees are paid
>>> by the university or company of the attendee.
>>>
>>> Secondly, selection of Wikimania 2015 location is a voting process with
>>> the public, as such bidders will try to keep to conference fees as low as
>>> possible.
>>>
>>> I personally support Chan's "four group" hierarchy: Non-Wikimedian
>>> price, Wikimedian price, Partial scholarship, Full scholarship, and his
>>> hesitance to raise general prices.
>>>
>>> Maarten
>>> Wikimania Cape 
>>> Town
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-03-23 2:54 GMT+01:00 Deryck Chan :
>>>
>>> Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry
 prices for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of
 course, there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices.
 I should remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4
 ticket prices:

 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still
 effectively slightly subsidised)
 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
 who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
 attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
 their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
 go to *more* Wikimanias.
 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)

 In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to
 raise the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
 Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
 consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
 (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
 more!

 Deryck

 Deryck
 On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:

> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most
> members of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have
> paid many hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation 
> costs
> to attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up
> their own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are
> not on behalf of their employer.
>
> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost
> an order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.
>  (These prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO
> the Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This
> conference is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia,
> whereas Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
>
> Regards,
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
> nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Manuel Schneider]

Just my two cents on ticket prices for Wikimedia conferences:

* I can confirm with what has been said about other, professional
conferences. Note the term "professional".

* Having a voluntarily higher price for supportive participants is
something we could try. We could even try to distinguish between
Wikimedians (a broader definition than scholarship recipients, eg.
connected to the voting rights which already define reasonable criteria)
and "outsiders".

My personal experience with setting prices for Wikimedia conferences:
Concerning WikiCon 2012 we were thinking it from the perspective of the
attendee. We wanted to get people who are not Wikimedians to attend as
well. So we offered day tickets and set their price according to what we
thought would be the max of what somebody who doesn't exactly know what
to expect and is just curious would be willing to pay.
In that case we came up with 5 EUR, a price level comparable to a visit
of a mid-level museum or a disco.
The price for the whole conference was then interpolated from that.

So the question is: What is our target group and what makes sense to
them to pay?
* again, splitting between Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians came to my
mind (how does the LinuxConf.au distinguish whether one is hobbyist or
professional)?
* I agree with what has been said on volunteers not willing to have to
pay for their hobby, if they already contribute so much else, no matter
what they actually earn.


/Manuel
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Edward Saperia]

A word from the trenches;

I am very keen to keep Wikimania prices low. It's not quite decided yet,
but I think our ticket prices will be less than $100, which compared to any
conference of comparable size is absurdly low; it would be worth buying a
ticket for the catering alone. It's not unusual for large conferences to
cost fifty times this.

However, for the past six months a significant amount of the (volunteer)
Wikimania team's time has been dedicated to fundraising, so there is a cost
to this.

*Edward Saperia*
Chief Coordinator Wikimania London 
email  * facebook
 * twitter  * 07796955572
133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG


On 23 March 2014 22:03, Lodewijk  wrote:

> As Wikimedia movement, we have the luxury to approach this question
> backwards. Instead of thinking about how we will pay for the event (we have
> many sponsorship opportunities and even a good amount of donations), we can
> look at who we would want to attend the event. We could design our pricing
> system such to accommodate that.
>
> So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
> attendance look like?
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
>
> 2014-03-23 13:48 GMT+01:00 maarten deneckere <
> maartendeneckere+wikima...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Two general thoughts that I think are important.
>> Firstly, most attendees will pay the conference fee themselves. You
>> cannot compare with the general conference where those (high) fees are paid
>> by the university or company of the attendee.
>>
>> Secondly, selection of Wikimania 2015 location is a voting process with
>> the public, as such bidders will try to keep to conference fees as low as
>> possible.
>>
>> I personally support Chan's "four group" hierarchy: Non-Wikimedian price,
>> Wikimedian price, Partial scholarship, Full scholarship, and his hesitance
>> to raise general prices.
>>
>> Maarten
>> Wikimania Cape 
>> Town
>>
>>
>> 2014-03-23 2:54 GMT+01:00 Deryck Chan :
>>
>> Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
>>> for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
>>> there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should
>>> remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
>>> prices:
>>>
>>> 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still
>>> effectively slightly subsidised)
>>> 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
>>> who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
>>> 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
>>> attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
>>> their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
>>> go to *more* Wikimanias.
>>> 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)
>>>
>>> In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to
>>> raise the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
>>> Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
>>> consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
>>> (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
>>> more!
>>>
>>> Deryck
>>>
>>> Deryck
>>> On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:
>>>
 My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most
 members of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have
 paid many hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs
 to attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up
 their own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are
 not on behalf of their employer.

 You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
 have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost
 an order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.
  (These prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO
 the Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This
 conference is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia,
 whereas Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.

 Regards,

 Charles



 On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
 nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:

> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we 
> felt
> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
>
> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't
> offer various pr

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Lodewijk]

As Wikimedia movement, we have the luxury to approach this question
backwards. Instead of thinking about how we will pay for the event (we have
many sponsorship opportunities and even a good amount of donations), we can
look at who we would want to attend the event. We could design our pricing
system such to accommodate that.

So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal
attendance look like?

Best,
Lodewijk


2014-03-23 13:48 GMT+01:00 maarten deneckere <
maartendeneckere+wikima...@gmail.com>:

> Two general thoughts that I think are important.
> Firstly, most attendees will pay the conference fee themselves. You cannot
> compare with the general conference where those (high) fees are paid by the
> university or company of the attendee.
>
> Secondly, selection of Wikimania 2015 location is a voting process with
> the public, as such bidders will try to keep to conference fees as low as
> possible.
>
> I personally support Chan's "four group" hierarchy: Non-Wikimedian price,
> Wikimedian price, Partial scholarship, Full scholarship, and his hesitance
> to raise general prices.
>
> Maarten
> Wikimania Cape 
> Town
>
>
> 2014-03-23 2:54 GMT+01:00 Deryck Chan :
>
> Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
>> for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
>> there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should
>> remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
>> prices:
>>
>> 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still
>> effectively slightly subsidised)
>> 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
>> who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
>> 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
>> attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
>> their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
>> go to *more* Wikimanias.
>> 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)
>>
>> In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise
>> the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
>> Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
>> consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
>> (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
>> more!
>>
>> Deryck
>>
>> Deryck
>> On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:
>>
>>> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most
>>> members of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have
>>> paid many hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs
>>> to attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up
>>> their own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are
>>> not on behalf of their employer.
>>>
>>> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
>>> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost
>>> an order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.
>>>  (These prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO
>>> the Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This
>>> conference is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia,
>>> whereas Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Charles
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
>>> nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
 number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt
 if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
 who didn't get scholarships from attending.

 That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't
 offer various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship"
 registration for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student
 registration, etc.

 Sincerely,
 Nicholas Michael Bashour

 Sent from my iPhone

 > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
 >
 > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
 > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
 > run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
 >
 > In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
 > person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
 > local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
 > community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
 > ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute ti

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[maarten deneckere]

Two general thoughts that I think are important.
Firstly, most attendees will pay the conference fee themselves. You cannot
compare with the general conference where those (high) fees are paid by the
university or company of the attendee.

Secondly, selection of Wikimania 2015 location is a voting process with the
public, as such bidders will try to keep to conference fees as low as
possible.

I personally support Chan's "four group" hierarchy: Non-Wikimedian price,
Wikimedian price, Partial scholarship, Full scholarship, and his hesitance
to raise general prices.

Maarten
Wikimania Cape 
Town


2014-03-23 2:54 GMT+01:00 Deryck Chan :

> Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
> for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
> there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should
> remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
> prices:
>
> 1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still
> effectively slightly subsidised)
> 2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
> who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
> 3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
> attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
> their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
> go to *more* Wikimanias.
> 4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)
>
> In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise
> the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
> Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
> consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
> (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
> more!
>
> Deryck
>
> Deryck
> On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:
>
>> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most members
>> of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid many
>> hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to
>> attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their
>> own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on
>> behalf of their employer.
>>
>> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
>> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost an
>> order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.  (These
>> prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the
>> Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This conference
>> is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas
>> Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Charles
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
>> nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
>>> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt
>>> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
>>> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
>>>
>>> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer
>>> various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration
>>> for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Nicholas Michael Bashour
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
>>> >
>>> > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
>>> > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
>>> > run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>>> >
>>> > In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
>>> > person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
>>> > local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
>>> > community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
>>> > ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
>>> > are more expensive.
>>> >
>>> > This has a few benefits:
>>> > * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
>>> > * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
>>> > * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
>>> > professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
>>> > institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
>>> > people attending the event.
>>> > * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>>> >
>>> > Warmly,
>>> > Sam
>>> >
>>> > ___
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>>> > Wikimania-l@lists.wikime

Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Bence Damokos]

I am not sure it is the right approach to expect attendees to pay the full
price of the per capita conference cost instead of relying on sponsors and
donors to cover the majority of the costs.

Having some entry price can serve for creating an interest in the attendee
for taking advantage of the conference (after all, they have paid for it,
they would not want to waste their own resources), but the overall goal of
Wikimania should be to be as inclusive as possible. (The less inclusive it
is, the less value it provides to donors, one could argue.)

To achieve inclusivity, I would recommend not setting up barriers that
disadvantage groups, by singling them out as receiving subsidies or by
setting prices that they cannot hope to pay. (I would also argue that even
regional pricing could possibly cause an effect of people feeling like
second class attendees.)

We also need to keep in mind, that despite all efforts, it is not possible
to come up with a way that can provide support to all potential attendees
that require it (scholarships are scarce, subsidies run out); setting
unaffordable prices would mean that we would limit the potential attendees
to the number of people rich enough who can self select + the hand picked
people that are given some form of subsidy (and who knows what group may be
left out in the middle).

And finally, we have to consider the function Wikimania serves for many
attendees, which is to be able to meet like minded people and socialize
(next to learning) - there is a price point where attending Wikimania can
be justified as vacation (albeit one that results in contacts and learning
that benefit the world), and above which it becomes a "work engagement"
(akin to professional academic conferences), however, one where we expect
the "employees" to pay.

Best regards,
Bence


On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
>
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>
> Warmly,
> Sam
>
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> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Stephan Schulz]

I've been surprised at the low prices at Wikimania in Hongkong.

When I attend scientific conferences, the conference fee is 
typically a few hundred Euro (or Dollar), usually enough to
cover the full cost of the conference. That said, these
conferences are often organised ad-hoc, or within a very small
scientific organisation without much external funding. Moreover,
the fees are not really paid by the attendees, but rather by
universities or research grants.

I found the low price for Wikimania a very positive thing.

On the other hand, I would prefer to have a tighter, more
focussed, and better structured program. Breaks should
be breaks, sessions should be strictly time-boxed, session
chairs should be in control of timing, and maybe the rate
of acceptance of talks should be stricter. While I
like the bazaar-like atmosphere, it made it very hard to
get to talks in time, and very frustrating for speakers
who had to deal with large audience fluctuations much of
the time.

Bye,

Stephan

On 23 Mar 2014, at 09:44, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Michael Snow  wrote:
>> On 3/23/2014 12:47 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:
 
 listing higher ticket prices is a major deterrent to attending.
>>> 
>>> Worth exploring with data: what inspires or deters attendance. That
>>> may be affected by all of: the various prices listed, the difference
>>> between the high and low prices listed, presentation of other options,
>>> banner text used, &c.
>> 
>> Okay, but we should look for existing knowledge and research related to the
>> subject to begin with. Answers for Wikimania ticket pricing are not as
>> straightforward to determine by A/B testing as fundraising approaches. The
>> population involved is a much smaller sample, motivating factors may be more
>> diverse, and the impact on the test subjects perhaps a little too personal
>> for that to be appropriate.
> 
> Very true.  Worth exploring with research, and gathering passive data
> on current behavior, for a start.
> 
> (We do currently show the Wikimania banners to 100M+ readers, I
> believe, so we have a large sample at that level.)
> 
> SJ
> 
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-- It can be done! -
  Please email me as sch...@eprover.org (Stephan Schulz)







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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Samuel Klein]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Michael Snow  wrote:
> On 3/23/2014 12:47 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>>
>>> listing higher ticket prices is a major deterrent to attending.
>>
>> Worth exploring with data: what inspires or deters attendance. That
>> may be affected by all of: the various prices listed, the difference
>> between the high and low prices listed, presentation of other options,
>> banner text used, &c.
>
> Okay, but we should look for existing knowledge and research related to the
> subject to begin with. Answers for Wikimania ticket pricing are not as
> straightforward to determine by A/B testing as fundraising approaches. The
> population involved is a much smaller sample, motivating factors may be more
> diverse, and the impact on the test subjects perhaps a little too personal
> for that to be appropriate.

Very true.  Worth exploring with research, and gathering passive data
on current behavior, for a start.

(We do currently show the Wikimania banners to 100M+ readers, I
believe, so we have a large sample at that level.)

SJ

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Michael Snow]

On 3/23/2014 12:47 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:

listing higher ticket prices is a major deterrent to attending.

Worth exploring with data: what inspires or deters attendance. That
may be affected by all of: the various prices listed, the difference
between the high and low prices listed, presentation of other options,
banner text used, &c.
Okay, but we should look for existing knowledge and research related to 
the subject to begin with. Answers for Wikimania ticket pricing are not 
as straightforward to determine by A/B testing as fundraising 
approaches. The population involved is a much smaller sample, motivating 
factors may be more diverse, and the impact on the test subjects perhaps 
a little too personal for that to be appropriate.


--Michael Snow


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Samuel Klein]

Ellie - I was looking at the proposed ticket prices in the 2015 bids :)

> On 3/22/2014 4:21 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>
>> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
>> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
>> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?

In particular, I mean full price tickets.
Our most expensive tickets are regularly less than the full cost of
participation.

Deryck - I agree, the price community members must pay to attend
should not rise.
Rupert - yes, subsidizing the cost of helping contributors meet one
another is important. But I think we can be more clear about the size
of the subsidy: we should know what a "full cost" ticket is, and allow
those who can pay it to do so.  And perhaps we could also have a
"donor" ticket option as Deryck suggests.

Michael Snow writes:
> This could be a reasonable approach, but it would need significant effort to
> ensure awareness of the different options, particularly low-cost tickets for
> attendees with limited resources.

What about a self-identifying system where anyone can claim a low-cost
community ticket?  Also noting on the same page the full cost of
attending, and offering tickets at that price too.

> listing higher ticket prices is a major deterrent to attending.

Worth exploring with data: what inspires or deters attendance. That
may be affected by all of: the various prices listed, the difference
between the high and low prices listed, presentation of other options,
banner text used, &c.

Sam.

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Samuel Klein, 23/03/2014 00:21:

This has a few benefits:
* tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
* tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
* scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
people attending the event.
* more accurate headcounts in advance.


I agree on the benefits. I wish I could have paid "real" 
tickets/registration fees in the years when I attended Wikimania: (my 
time, and secondarily) travel and accommodation would have still been 
the main costs, but I would have avoided the feeling of being what in 
Italian is called a "mangia pane a ufo".


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Nathan]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 11:41 PM, rupert THURNER
wrote:

> hi sam,
>
> from time to time you manage to puzzle me. discussions with you are in
> general path-leading and very inspiring. i appreciate this :) you know
> why i edit wikipedia? (1) because i want to find that information
> online afterwards, freely available, no strings attached.  and (2)
> because i love to meet people around the movement so (1) is easier to
> achieve. you know why people pay money (i.e. donate)? because they
> like this as well.
>
> you know what would make me stop edit? if you want me to pay
> additional money only because i am an interested volunteer. this is
> independent of how much money i earn.
>
> just in case you try to say: i get it cheaper because i am poor, a
> student, a woman, disabled, or my organisation pays for it. i want to
> be treated as a normal person, and i want to pay a normal price. i
> want my organisation to pay a normal price for me in case they pay. i
> am not a beggar. my organisation is not a beggar. and i do not need
> WMF to make me one. i want that our local GLAMs who are funded by by
> tax money i pay are not ripped off additionally by wikimedia
> foundation triggering high entry prices. this is also valid for people
> like anasuya sengupta. as she is not contributing, she is not eligible
> somebody pays her flight and entry to the conference. please do not
> rip off people like her as well.
>
> so - low ticket prices for everybody - and using donations to make
> contributing people meet is a good thing. i volunteer to edit
> wikipedia and i engage myself in fundraising and tax exemption to
> allow this to people. besides (1) contributing contents, and (2)
> contributing software, meeting is imo one of the three core functions
> of the movement.
>
> rupert.
> https://twitter.com/swissglammies
>
>
I didn't get that sense from SJ's post at all. Progressive and appropriate
pricing that preserves the ability of Wikimedians to attend Wikimania is
simply sensible management of donor funds. As a charitable organization
that depends on donations, the WMF (and chapters) should not be using those
funds to subsidize attendance for those who don't need it. Pricing tickets
to all attendees below the cost of participation is a subsidy for all them
that many don't need, and it makes sense to me for the WMF to limit
subsidies to those participants who have requested it.
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[rupert THURNER]

hi sam,

from time to time you manage to puzzle me. discussions with you are in
general path-leading and very inspiring. i appreciate this :) you know
why i edit wikipedia? (1) because i want to find that information
online afterwards, freely available, no strings attached.  and (2)
because i love to meet people around the movement so (1) is easier to
achieve. you know why people pay money (i.e. donate)? because they
like this as well.

you know what would make me stop edit? if you want me to pay
additional money only because i am an interested volunteer. this is
independent of how much money i earn.

just in case you try to say: i get it cheaper because i am poor, a
student, a woman, disabled, or my organisation pays for it. i want to
be treated as a normal person, and i want to pay a normal price. i
want my organisation to pay a normal price for me in case they pay. i
am not a beggar. my organisation is not a beggar. and i do not need
WMF to make me one. i want that our local GLAMs who are funded by by
tax money i pay are not ripped off additionally by wikimedia
foundation triggering high entry prices. this is also valid for people
like anasuya sengupta. as she is not contributing, she is not eligible
somebody pays her flight and entry to the conference. please do not
rip off people like her as well.

so - low ticket prices for everybody - and using donations to make
contributing people meet is a good thing. i volunteer to edit
wikipedia and i engage myself in fundraising and tax exemption to
allow this to people. besides (1) contributing contents, and (2)
contributing software, meeting is imo one of the three core functions
of the movement.

rupert.
https://twitter.com/swissglammies

On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
>
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>
> Warmly,
> Sam
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Michael Snow]

On 3/22/2014 4:21 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?

In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
are more expensive.
This could be a reasonable approach, but it would need significant 
effort to ensure awareness of the different options, particularly 
low-cost tickets for attendees with limited resources. I know part of 
the reason for keeping them low in the past is that we have wanted to 
avoid Wikimania becoming the kind of high-priced conference attended 
exclusively by people with institutional support (corporate or academic 
types), so that it's still feasible for individuals wanting to attend at 
their own expense.


For people who are price-sensitive, either because the money is coming 
out of their own pocket or because they simply don't have the resources, 
listing higher ticket prices is a major deterrent to attending. They may 
not even get as far as investigating options to reduce the cost, such as 
scholarships, because the initial amount seems out of reach. This is 
particularly true if they are looking at significant travel expenses 
beyond just the cost of entry to the conference.


--Michael Snow


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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Ellie Young]

Where are you seeing the proposed prices?   We haven't completely
finalized them which is why I am curious.

> On Mar 22, 2014, at 4:22 PM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
>
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>
> Warmly,
> Sam
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Deryck Chan]

Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices
for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course,
there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should
remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket
prices:

1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still effectively
slightly subsidised)
2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those
who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to
attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless
their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to
go to *more* Wikimanias.
4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)

In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise
the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income"
Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means
consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price"
(full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay
more!

Deryck

Deryck
On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory"  wrote:

> My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most members
> of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid many
> hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to
> attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their
> own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on
> behalf of their employer.
>
> You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I
> have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost an
> order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.  (These
> prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the
> Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This conference
> is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas
> Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.
>
> Regards,
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
> nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
>> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt
>> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
>> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
>>
>> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer
>> various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration
>> for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Nicholas Michael Bashour
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
>> >
>> > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
>> > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
>> > run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>> >
>> > In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
>> > person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
>> > local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
>> > community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
>> > ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
>> > are more expensive.
>> >
>> > This has a few benefits:
>> > * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
>> > * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
>> > * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
>> > professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
>> > institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
>> > people attending the event.
>> > * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>> >
>> > Warmly,
>> > Sam
>> >
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Charles Gregory]

My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most members
of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid many
hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to
attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their
own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on
behalf of their employer.

You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I have
experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost an order
of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.  (These prices
are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the Hobbyist
rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This conference is,
however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas Wikimania is
indirectly supported by donations to WMF.

Regards,

Charles



On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <
nicholasbash...@gmail.com> wrote:

> For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest
> number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt
> if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people
> who didn't get scholarships from attending.
>
> That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer
> various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration
> for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc.
>
> Sincerely,
> Nicholas Michael Bashour
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
> >
> > Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> > low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> > run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
> >
> > In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> > person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> > local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> > community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> > ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> > are more expensive.
> >
> > This has a few benefits:
> > * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> > * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> > * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> > professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> > institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> > people attending the event.
> > * more accurate headcounts in advance.
> >
> > Warmly,
> > Sam
> >
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> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
>
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Re: [Wikimania-l] Setting ticket prices

[Nicholas Bashour]

For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest number 
of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt if 
registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people who 
didn't get scholarships from attending.

That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer 
various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration for 
those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc. 

Sincerely,
Nicholas Michael Bashour

Sent from my iPhone

> Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein :
> 
> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
> 
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
> 
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
> 
> Warmly,
> Sam
> 
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