[Linux-aus] grr

[Russell Coker]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 10:40:20 Stewart Smith wrote:
> $400 is insanely cheap for a conference - the majority of other ones I
> speak are quite decently over three times that (often closer 4
> times). Absolutely none of these have discounted entry for hobbyists -
> linux.conf.au is rather unique in this regard - trying to be as
> inclusive as possible.

http://www.linux-kongress.org/2010/fees.html

Last time Linux Kongress ran it cost students E150 for 2 days of conference 
and E200 for 2 days of tutorials.  The regular price was E450 and E600 
respectively.

http://www.xe.com/

According to xe.com that translates to $500 for a student to attend for 4 days 
and $1500 for full price to attend for 4 days.  So the LK prices for student 
and regular entrance seem very comparable to the "professional" and fairy 
penguin sponsor prices for LCA (especially given that LCA is a 5 day event).

Are there any other conferences we can compare to?  I couldn't find a price for 
OLS and I'm not aware of any other conferences that are worth comparing.


In terms of the expense in providing a conference some of the features of LCA 
drive higher prices.  One significant issue is the size of the conference and 
the goal the every delegate attends the keynote lectures, that restricts the 
choice to a small number of venues.

http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/04/19/micro-conference/

Some years ago I investigated the possibility of having a micro-conference 
immediately before or after LCA.  I ended up not going ahead with that, but 
the prices give an idea of the market for that sort of thing.  It looked like 
$NZ135 per delegate for a 2 day conference with one conference dinner.  Medium 
size hotels are really cheap for this sort of thing as they have unused 
capacity for catering AND they want to drive bookings of hotel rooms.

Note that such a low cost conference venue takes up about half the hobbyist 
price for LCA even when you are planning to spend money on nothing else (no 
Internet access, no professional video recording, no subsidising travel for 
speakers, etc).

-- 
My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/