Re: [Debconf-team] Le Camp Accomodation - Bed selling and professional fee
Hi
Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> writes:
> Hi all,
>
> thanks Gaudenz for this proposal!
Thanks for reviving the discussion.
>
> Le mardi, 15 janvier 2013 23.01:12, Gaudenz Steinlin a écrit :
>
>> * How should the bed selling work in conjunction with the professional
>> fee?
>> It was suggested several times that the professional fee and the
>> accomodation and food costs should be separated. To do this we need to
>> define the individual prices for each item. I suggest that we define
>> three prices (attendence fee per week, food per day (for 3 meals) and
>> accomodation costs per night).
>
> I think (but without much conviction) that the "professional fee" should
> include accomodation in "non-dormitories" beds. By doing that we must also put
> the focus on the fact that "professional fee" implies supporting the
> _conference_ financially, not acquiring rights for upper accomodation
> qualities.
>
> Then these attendees would need to pay the additional fee to get the more
> comfortable accomodation. With the possibility to host themselves in hotels,
> this means they can either pay a small additional amount to be hosted on-site
> in more comfortable accomodation, or a bigger additional amount to get a hotel
> room.
The two paragraphs above seem to conflict. First you state that
professional should include accomodation in non-dormitory beds and then
you say that people would have to pay an additional amount. Can you
clarify how you think this should work.
IMO the professional fee should not include any kind of accomodation.
And there should be an additional professional accomodation fee (per
night) for those that want to be hosted on site.
>
>> * Which beds should be sold?
>> Depending on the definition of a "more comfortable" bed more or less
>> beds can be sold at all. It's quite obvious to me that we can't ask for
>> the same amount for each of these beds. Depending on the cut of point
>> between 48 (all single/double rooms) and 155 (all non sleeping-bag beds)
>> can be sold.
>
> Given [0], I would split the thing in five categories (names to be changed,
> but this is an attempt at naming these in a neutral way):
>
> * "Iron"
> all rooms with >= 20 persons: 78 beds
> We would allow allocate these last and people with sponsored
> accomodation would be allowed to go there if they want.
> For non-sponsored, this would be 14 CHF/night.
>
> * "Nickel"
> all sleeping bag rooms with < 20 persons and > 2 : 81 beds
> This would be the standard sponsored accomodation. The "value" of this for
> non-sponsored accomodation would need to be defined, let's put it at
> 17 CHF/night for now.
>
> * "Zinc"
> all nordique rooms with >= 5 persons : 76 beds
> all sleeping bag rooms with <= 2 persons: 12 beds
> This would be the "small price increase" category: +5 CHF/night
>
> * "Aluminium"
> all nordique rooms with < 5 persons and > 1: 75 beds
> This would be the "bigger price increase" category: +10 CHF/night
>
> * "Copper"
> all nordique rooms with <= 1 persons: 4 beds
> +20 CHF/night.
> (Mentionned for sake of completeness)
>
> [0] https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/LeCamp/Rooms
>
> Please understand the above repartition as a basis for discussion (and don't
> shoot the messenger, eh…). Also the increases are not meant as cumulative, but
> all come on top of "Nickel".
I like the partition of the different room types. What I don't
understand is what people would pay for a bed in each of the rooms.
So if someone would be eglible for sponsored accomodation but they want
an aluminium room they would pay an extra of 10 CHF/night? Or would they
pay 17 + 10 = 27 CHF? Or would only persons not eglible for sponsored
accomodation pay 27 CHF? And would this be the same price if for
people paying the professional fee? Or would those even be eglible for
the 10 CHF upgrade price?
>
>> * Who should be eglible to buy more comfortable beds?
>> The question is if persons paying the professional fee should have
>> priority in any way. Either with a requirement that you pay professional
>> if you want to buy one of these beds or by giving them priority if there
>> is a shortage.
>
> "First come first served" without a prioritisation on attendee category sounds
> the easiest and fairest way.
I agree that this is the easiest for us and for the attendees and like
this idea (see also below).
>
> This also helps separating the "price one pays to attend the conference" and
> the "accomodation" questions.
>
>> Another aspect is if Debian contributors should have preference over
>> accompanying persons. Would it be acceptable if a family occupies a 4
>> bed room if there is more demand than available beds?
>
> The problem here is that we'll know only late if the LeCamp accomodation will
> be fully booked or not. In the "not fully booked" case, then it's better to
> fill empty beds with accompanying perons than not at all; in the "fully
> booked" option, then the accompanying persons (non-"conference attendees")
> would use beds which would better be allocated to "conference attendees" (as
> we are primarily organising a conference, not a family gathering).
>
> The best solution seems to ask potential groups ("attendee" + relatives) to
> book early and then inform them at a later (but not too late) date if it's
> okay or not. We should of course be very clear about these deadlines and
> information dates. This would essentially mean there's a period of
> "candidating for rooms" and then "we" decide on the allocation, at a later
> stage. It's very imperfect but I think it's quite fair.
I don't think this is doable. At least it would put a very high
expectation on us to decide quite early so that people can still buy
tickets after the decision at reasonable prices.
I expect the amount of people not eglible for sponsored accomodation to
be quite low. At least in the past AFAIK the accompanying persons has
been quite low (10 to 20 persons?). So I don't think this is a big
problem.
So my vote is to just stick to the first come first served rule
regardless of the "status" of the person.
>
>> * Prices
>> We need to define the price for the various items:
>> - Beds (for each category)
>
> Proposal above.
>
>> - Food
>
> I think we should sponsor food but request to "non-sponsored" to pay the price
> we have to pay to LeCamp: we wouldn't do a benefit or a loss on food. This
> would be 34.- CHF per person per day afair.
So this 34.- would be completely voluntary? Or do "non-sponsored" people
have to pay this to be able to get food? I would vote for the latter.
Another problem is that with the contract we can't have many people with
accomodation at Le Camp but no food. So IMO food should be included in
the accomodation (and thus paid if non sponsored).
>
>> - Professional and corporate attendence fee
>> I would like to delegate this to the "money/budget people". It would be
>> nice to have a proposal for the next meeting. There was also an idea
>> floating around to make an auction. While if we belive in the
>> traditional economic theory this would be the fairest solution (for
>> their definition of fair), this is IMO not practicable.
>
> I have no idea for reasonable prices, but I think that what matters is to be
> clear that these fees are for "attending the conference" and don't give any
> special rights for "better" accomodation, food, or whatever.
>
>> I'd like to gather the feedback from team members to these questions
>> before the meeting next Thursday. So that we ideally can already decide
>> about some of these questions there.
>
> Aye, sorry…
No problem.
>
> I hope to still have brought some useful points in the conversation !
> Cheers,
Thanks for your input.
Best,
Gaudenz
--
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett ~
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