[Linux-aus] Re: LCA, eh

[Del]

> Growing LCA is going to be a major pain, I agree.  Unfortunately, the only
> idea I can think of at the moment (splitting the conference into multiple
> separate yet most likely related conferences) sucks for a wide variety of
> reasons.

As does arbitrarily accepting only the first (300|500|2000) registrations.

> Even finding a really, really big venue (capable of holding umpteen thousand
> delegates) isn't necessarily a solution.  You need one room capable of
> holding everyone, and at least one or two other rooms capable of holding
> nearly as many people (since it can be hard to guess which of several
> simultaneous talks is going to be the big drawcard).
> 
> Do we know how the other big Linux conferences (or even other, relatively
> unrelated meeting events) handle these sorts of size issues?

The simple answer is that they hire larger convention centres.  They
book out places the size of darling harbour and pack in the punters.

The answer to the problem of scale is, well, scale.

If you're cutting the numbers off at (what was it?) 550 in Canberra,
and then in a few years time you're looking at holding the conf in
Sydney, then expect probably double that.  Interest in Linux is growing,
not waning, and Canberra could have easily booked in 800 or so if
they hadn't cut off the numbers.

If you add an additional stream or two, reach out to some of the
non-hobbyist community, then your numbers go up again.  Say around
2000 would not be unrealistic.

Now if you're charging $400 (avg) per delegate (split between professionals
paying more and hobbyists paying less), then that makes your conference
turnover closer to $800,000, and you can start to afford the larger
venues.  You can also do things like hire a professional conference
organiser and that takes the load off the volunteers to some degree.

-- 
Del