On Jun 17, 2016 11:16 AM, "Stephen Gallagher" <sgallagh@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On 06/17/2016 10:28 AM, Brian (bex) Exelbierd wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Rafal, Filip and I have been working hard on the evening activities.
> >
> > The current proposal is the following:
> >
> > 2 August - Game Night at the Hotel and a City Tour 3 August - 3 hour dinner
> > cruise (200 ppl) 4 August - Buffet Dinner and Beer tasting at Browar Lubicz
> >
> > We would like to hear you feedback on these?  Do we need all three evenings
> > to have an activity?  Essentially we have a choice.  If we cancel either the
> > cruise or the brewery we can shift 6-8 thousand dollars ($6000 - $8000) into
> > the travel subsidy budget.  Would you rather have one activity and a greater
> > subsidy budget or 2 activities?
> >
>
>
> Let's assume for the moment that we made the upper end of that ($8000) into a
> travel subsidy. Do we have numbers on the average cost of a subsidy? Would this
> enable us to subsidize five additional travelers? Ten? Twenty? I think that
> makes a difference. If it enables us to get a lot more people to the conference
> who would like to attend, then there's real value in that. However, if cost of
> travel and lodging is so high that it's a minimal difference (say, five or fewer
> additional subsidies), then it's probably worth it to keep the activities instead.

As one of the folks running the calculus on travel, I'd say "it depends." On the high-end, APAC travelers can cost 3k+ in some cases. On the low end, the (hopefully happening) bus from Brno or a train ride + hotel could be <1k per traveller.

Since we are already *significantly* investing in travel, at some point we need to ensure the quality of the experience over extra quantity of attendees. I think cancelling *all* the evening events would be hugely detrimental to morale, and should not be considered an option.

One of the big benefits of choosing Krakow was that spending on evening events would be cheaper than prohibitive venue costs from other bids like France. If we forgo this then we might as well just book the nearest cheapest hotel to an airport hub, and call it done next time...

There are other regional events that folks who cannot make it to Flock this year can attend, and likely other Flocks in the future too.

Please don't cancel the boat,
--RemyD.