[Eg-oversight-board] Evergreen Conference 2014 budget

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

I can point out that the Evergreen project is unique among the many
conferences that Conservancy has coordinated, in that speakers are not
given gratis registration. But as Galen points out, perhaps this is
standard and reasonable in the library community.  As Dan points out,
speakers from the broader software world will (and have been) aghast at
the concept.  Conservancy was even contacted directly this year with
complaint on that issue.  We of course defended your position.

What's odd to me, though is that Evergreen chooses to give large
stipends to keynoters (somewhat) in lieu of gratis registration for
track speakers.  Usually, Conservancy's other conferences tend to cover
travel expenses for keynoters, but don't give stipends unless they
really have a huge budget surplus.

Pricing-wise, Evergreen conference registration is the cheapest of any
conference done by a Conservancy project.  By way of comparison,
Selenium's annual conference, which is bit bigger than Evergreen's
conference by about 50-75 attendees, charges $299 for early bird and
$350 for a 2-day conference (with a $75 half-day training workshop the
day before the conference).  C++ Now (the Boost Project's conference)
charges a whopping $599 for early bird and $699 for regular (and sells
out quickly every year at about the same number as Evergreen
conference).  (Granted, Boost's is a 4 day conference, so it'd be more
around $350 for a two-day event.)  Back before jQuery spun off to their
own org, they usually charged around $325 for a 2-day conference.

I've been impressed that you've been able to do break-even conferences
of this size while keeping rates low.  I had assumed that in the library
world, you were at the limit of pricing levels that would be deemed
acceptable, even though they seem cheap in the software world, so I
don't begrudge you for wanting to keep ticket prices low, but 

Meanwhile, increasing sponsorship sponsorship by having a trade-show
floor will surely make a huge budgetary difference, and could easily
generate a lot more revenue for your project, but I strongly suggest
that you make sure the venue provides a *fully separate* trade-show
room.  (By way of comparison, IMO, the Indiana setup in 2012 didn't
really work well, because it was in a hallway, which I noticed was
frustrating for both attendees and exhibitors.)

Anyway, best of luck at your meeting and deciding plans for next year's
conference, and please let me know if you need anything from Conservancy
to support your decision-making.  Please do pass along to Conservancy
the final budget that EOB approves.  Thanks!
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy