I should add that I think some of the problem this year is Prague, which
surprised me in how difficult it is to get to from much of the world, which
resulted in some odd itineraries. So at least one visa issue (I think two;
I could go look it all up again) was because of an itinerary that involved
entering the Schengen area in another country and then traveling to Prague.
I believe in another case, it was duration; the trip was longer than the
approved visa.
We did prioritize those who needed visas to have their flights purchased
first. Those of you who were subsidized also know that this year we tried
two different methods. Paul and I booked some of your flights ourselves,
which is time consuming not only for us doing the booking, but also slow
because we can only go until we max out our credit cards (which isn't very
many), pay them off, and start over. Then we switched to having them booked
through Red Hat's travel agent, which in some cases resulted in cheaper
flights and definitely was much faster, but I believe overall in the end
cost us more money. As a result, I'm undecided on which is really the
better option.
I think there are a few things to consider next year:
- We'll be back in the US, and I think historically we've had less trouble
getting people to the US, so that should help.
- We'll move up the CFP, which will give us an agenda sooner, which will
let us book flights sooner.
- I suspect the ideal solution is to use blocked flights for people who
need them for visas. Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of luck booking
these as a third party, so it means people need to do them themselves. I've
found people are reluctant to (or simply don't have credit cards and
cannot) book their own flights. And in at least one case in the past, it
resulted in the person booking a very expensive flight including upgrades
(which we did not reimburse). So there are pluses and minuses there too.
- I know several people think we should choose who receives subsidies in
entirely different ways. The past two years, we've fully subsidized any
speaker who requested it. This year, that turned out to be a mistake, as
with all these flight changes and the cost of getting more than a dozen
people from APAC to Prague has killed our budget. Suggestions I've heard
include:
- Making the subsidy not necessarily for speakers, but for some
other criteria. I think this is the most challenging, as the appropriate
criteria will be different to everyone. To me, subsidizing speakers is the
most fair way.
- Reconsidering which countries we subsidize first. Flock is a
NA/EMEA conference, and APAC and LATAM have their own FUDCons. For the two
years of Flock, the biggest parts of our budget have gone to getting LATAM
and APAC people there.
- Subsidizing either hotel stays or flights but not both. I will
be honest... we've had a few people this year act like they thought this
was how they were getting a free trip to Prague. Yes, you get the benefit
of coming to a beautiful city. And I'm even willing to work with you on
when you come and go if you'd like to stay a while to visit Europe. But
we're not in the business of free vacations here.