No subject

 - 2013 rego was $400k - $100k for accom costs = $300k
 - 2014 rego was $200k
 - 2013/14 sponsorship was about the same

 - total 2013 expenses excl accom was $371k
 - total 2014 expenses was $360k

 - 2013 had $50k profit
 - $100k less income, $10k less expenses
 - so 2014 had $40k loss

Breaking down the expenses for comparison:

 - 2013: transport + ghosts + travel national = $35k
 - 2014: transport + ghosts + travel national = $29k
 - 2013: venue + AV + storage + office = $68k
 - 2014: venue + AV = $88k
 - 2013: speakers int'l travel + speakers dinner = $77k
 - 2014: speakers int'l travel + speakers dinner + speakers local travel = $52k
(fixed costs about even)

- 2013: food&drink + dinner = $91k
 - 2014: catering + dinner + food&drink = $92k
(total food costs about even)

 - 2013: schwag + donation + printing = $80k
 - 2014: schwag + partners = $34k
 - 2014: events mgmt + accom = $51k
(savings here covered the events mgmt)

My conclusion was that 2014 ended up spending too much on catering
compared to their rego intake -- ie, in 2013, 30c in the dollar of
registration went to cover catering; while in 2014, it was 45c in the
dollar (ie, a 50% increase). If it had been at the same rate, that
would've meant spending $60k instead, which would've reduced the loss
to ~$10k. My guess would be that having the food trucks around was
probably a significant part of that.

I think the rego prices for 2013 and 2014 were pretty similar (with
the exception of early-bird professional prices?) so I'm presuming
there was about a 30% drop in attendee numbers compared to Canberra.
That seems mostly reasonable, given Canberra did fairly heavy
self-promotion and was more convenient for more people.

It's not clear to me what the 2014 crew could/should have done
differently themselves -- cutting the food trucks would've made
lunches a bunch more complicated I think; and (at least without
digging into the details) nothing else seems like it had obvious extra
savings to be made.

Doing better forecasting/communication so the LA council weren't
surprised that LCA turned out to make a loss would be a good thing,
obviously, and seems in hand. That might be enough to get other people
in the community to help with promotion and stuff so the
attendance/revenue side of things is better, which would also be a
win, obviously.

Cheers,
aj

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