FOSS4G 2016 Lessons Learned

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FOSS4G 2016 Lessons Learned

This is to document things that the local committee learned, for the benefit of future FOSS4Gs!!

Sponsorship

• Arnulf just told me, that the 1500$ supporter package was especially created "as is", means with conference pass and is used by smaller companies - which are the ground deposit and so important for spreading the word! That's the reason, why we didn't touch it...

• We've done a very, very conservative calculation and only calculated 40k sponsoring money. Of course, the more, the better, but doing that will give you a more robust view on what attendees must bring in return. Might be you should adapt your break even points or even have to rise your fees. Finally it was around €120k minus free tickets connected to the sponsorship
• Many exhibitors asked for additional reduced and/or free tickets, which we negotiated
• We seperated exhibition and sponsorship due to some empty big booths from Gold Sponsors in Seoul... manned booth are much more attractive for all attendees and so in general for all exhibitors ;-)
• Exhibition costs were "as is", no extra value for us, the organizers

Travel Grants

• The Travel Grants Program should be part of each FOSS4G. Apply for money from the board soon! Conference Committee has to define unique rules (I already requested for this)
• Should be sponsored by OSgeo and potentially the attendees. We opened a Paypal possibility, but only gathered 50€, perhaps better marketing here
• We paid for ticket/overnight - paying for travel is very difficult and could hardly be managed (what if they cancel their trip a few days before? The money is lost etc.). So Travel-Grantees had to care for their travel costs on their own
• See FOSS4G 2016 Travel Grants

Financial

• Make kind of a risk analysis, that lists the costs you have 6,3,2,1 month before the event - this shows clearly, which costs you have in the very unlikely case, you have to cancel. Comparing these costs with the number of already registered attendees will help you to sleep better ;-)

• About Early Birdies - I just talked to Sanghee, chair of the 2015 event. In Seoul 25% of all attendees registered few days before online registration closed or did it on-site! And that's why we thought about how we can attract Early Birders with more than just a smaller price. I like the early plans from Boston attracting Early Birdies especially!

LOC Organization

• If LOC consists of volunteers, don't expect permanent awareness, be patient and plan with some slack time ;-)
• But if LOC consists of enthusiastic people, it gives F4G a personal touch, better than buy everything from a PCO

Discounts

• Keep in mind, that offering special rates for students (and other groups) might cause problems for your general calculation! (see student helpers)
• We only gave some discount to sponsors, that sent many people (special deals)

Student Helpers

• We opened the doors for approx. 40 students from all over the world. The deal was 50% work for us, 50% free attendance. We also opened the not sold out workshops for them two days before. They worked at registration/for the video team mainly. Entrance pass was a copy of the student card
• Students were partly mixed with travel grantees. For these we paid some money for their travels
• In general good idea, needs some orchestration and don't expect every student to show up at the event!
• Try to implement them the idea of an intensive communication - some of them didn't even reply to direct emails
• The majority did and they did a great job & were happy to have this possibility!!!

Academic Track

• need for a Student Award troubleshooter
• we integrated AT into the regular programme instead of having one parallel track. Connects more people in our eyes.

Code Sprint

• I think the idea to have two extra long code sprints before and after was a good one. Of course not everywhere the possibilty we had with BaseCamp are so perfect, but I guess, if people travel, they don't mind staying longer if they have the opportunity to work with their project for longer

Food

• Provide the delegate's dietary requirements to the venues. Otherwise some delegates may not be able to eat which might make them grumpy. Especially if the food is made off-site (with no kitchen available, they can't create something off-the-cuff).