[Linux-aus] Treasurers Report 2012

[Anthony Towns]

On 26 January 2013 06:23, Michael Still <mikal at stillhq.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:48 AM, Joshua Hesketh <josh at nitrotech.org> wrote:
>> Awesome breakdown aj. Thanks for that :-)
>> I have some thoughts on swag but they are for another time ;-). It
>> certainly does take up a huge amount though.
> Hi I'm Michael, and I've recently spent a large amount of money on swag...

Hi Michael!

> When we bid for for LCA2013 we intended to spend less on swag than
> previous years. Specifically, eliminating expensive backpacks was one
> of the things we wanted to do. However -- it turns out that what
> actually ended up happening is that we reused that money on other swag
> items. So overall my gut feel is our swag spend is inline with
> previous conferences?

Based on Josh's latest spreadsheet, it's in-line as a dollar figure,
and quite a bit less as a percentage of rego fees collected, I think?

> Is swag a good use of money? I think it is from a delegate
> perspective.

Yeah. At ~$50k, it comes to a bit under $100 per attendee. Compared to
$950 non-early-bird professional rego fee, that's not a lot at all.
But costing as much as the venue, or food, or speaker expenses; I
guess I wonder if we should expect 'more' from it than just something
to remember the conference by? ie, try to focus schwag more along the
lines of the LeoSticks from last year, or the OLPCs from Melbourne --
ie things that promote Linux/open source/... Like, is the $100 on
schwag per attendee getting about the same value as the $110 for the
HackCNC kit/build-session (that I'm in on, *w000000t*), and if not, is
there a good way of changing things so it is?

Not that there's anything wrong with merely being as good as past
conferences in one area, and it's entirely possible that you guys have
already got awesome schwag that is that cool, of course. I'm trying
not to get my hopes up, though, just in case...

> Perhaps one solution is to be more aggressive with the no swag options
> next year? We let people register with no swag selected, but they
> didn't get a discount for doing that. Perhaps the next logical step is
> to offer a discount and see what happens.

I was thinking maybe let folks choose between physical schwag
(t-shirt, keepcup, etc) and a cheap consumable, like a couple of
ice-cream vouchers or a voucher for a drink at the Wig&Pen or similar.
An outright discount come up against the 'company is paying for it,
schwag doesn't benefit the company, so...' and folks not getting
anything physical to remember the conference by...

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at erisian.com.au>