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.