I think 400 attendees would be a rather overoptimistic estimate for the NYC attendance this year, but by 2016 hopefully WikiConference USA will be able to grow to this size or larger.
I agree that a good partnership with a university that can waive some costs is critical, unless you have much more money on hand than we did. Certainly you should be able to get a grant at least comparable to the NYC grant from the WMF, and probably by this time there will be other funding sources that can contribute on a larger scale as well. It is never too early to start planning and identifying potential partner universities, though. Thanks, Pharos On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Lane Rasberry <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > I was one of the organizers from the NYC conference and I am from Seattle. > > First, let me confirm as Pine said that this is discussion for the future > and likely there is a perpetual offer of funding if Seattle would wish to > host the conference. In NYC the format was as follows: > > - three day conference > - 400 attendees (I think), with a third attending 3 days, a third 2 > days, and a third 1 day > - 5 conference tracks, all volunteer presenters > - all volunteer planning team, with some hired staff per venue > requirements > - hired catering > - WiFi necessary for everyone > - Running the conference was budgeted to 13k, but I think it ran to > 16k, and no one had any ideas at all on making this cheaper; likely we > could have requested and gotten more > - We awarded 22k in travel scholarships which funded flights and > hostel accommodations, which again was the cheapest acceptable way to do > this > - Our venue rental cost would have been 48k to be at a university in > Manhattan. This was donated to us by the university, and if we had to pay > for that, I am not sure what we would have done. > - Because of accessibility and diversity concerns, we did not charge > admission to join the conference and accepted everyone who showed up. We > did ask for registration, and we would have turned people away had we gone > over capacity. We did warn some late registrants that we might not have > room for them. > > Most cash from the conference came from the Wikimedia Foundation. > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/WM_US-NYC/WikiConference_USA_2014 > > > > We did some fundraising too. > > If there were more discussion about hosting this conference in Seattle, I > could help Wikimedia Cascadia build on and copy the preparation and > planning that was done in NYC. > > I should also say that while WM NYC did almost all of the event planning, > WM DC managed the awarding of travel scholarships. It helps to have > partners in this. > > The biggest barrier to hosting a conference is getting a place to do it. > If any university in the area would help host then that would be best. > > In the past I reached out to the organizers of Seattle InfoCamp about > combining their conference with a WikiConference. I know they have been > looking for help organizing and managing their event, and as I feel it is > so closely aligned with Wikimedia community values, I have long wished that > our communities could collaborate. > > It seems that this year their conference is cancelled, or rather postponed > until next year. > <http://seattle.infocamp.org/> > Since they are having a bit of management crisis, now might be a good time > to check back with them and see if they would partner with us Wikimedians. > They already have about five years experience running our size of > conferences in Seattle, and it might be that if we combined our two sort of > shaky communities together then we could be very strong and organized > together. At least it is an option. > > yours, > > > > > On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 3:50 AM, Benj. Mako Hill <[email protected]> wrote: > >> <quote who="Pine W" date="Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:40:46AM -0700"> >> > Thanks. Quick guesses: >> > >> > 100 to 500 participants >> > Yes to UW housing >> > At least one common meal for all participants on Saturday >> > Probably summer of 2016 or 2017 >> > Events from Friday evening through Sunday mid-afternoon with arrivals >> > Friday morning and departures late Sunday. We may expand the schedule >> > depending on the level of interest in a pre-conference hackathon or >> > education workshop. >> > >> > It would be great if you and Peaceray take the lead on this. >> >> I'm assuming we'd be able to get funding for this. The thing that >> would be useful to know from the NYU organizers is how much money they >> expect this to cost. >> >> Later, >> Mako >> >> >> >> -- >> Benjamin Mako Hill >> http://mako.cc/ >> >> Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far >> as society is free to use the results. --GNU Manifesto >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-Cascadia mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-cascadia >> >> > > > -- > Lane Rasberry > user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia > 206.801.0814 > [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-Cascadia mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-cascadia > >
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