Re: [DebConf19] Budget Approval Request [2018-08]
Hi Paulo (2018.08.21_20:24:37_+0200)
> Our head :-)
> > I see 111 accepted accommodation bursaries, at DebConf18. Of those, 105
> > actually came to the conference.
>
> Do you have some suggestion about the number?
You probably heard us say this a few times in person, and on IRC, but
I'll repeat my thinking on this:
The content Every DebConf local team thinks that
> We really believe if we open registration earlier and we publicity the
> accepted bursaries much earlier than what was done to DC18, we will
> have more than 105 attendees to use the accommodation.
>
> But sure, we need help from bursarie and registration teams with this,
> and we have the promise made in Taiwan that registration and bursary
> will be earlier.
Bursaries were delayed for a couple of reasons that I know of:
1. Late budget (the main cause)
2. The bursaries review team wasn't formed yet, when the budget was
approved. People didn't have enough free time, when the process was
unblocked.
Getting the budget approved early is the best thing you can do to help
this.
Let's start figuring out the timeline for registration. I filed #4 on
the website to track this.
https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/websites/dc19/issues/4
However, we need more than an earlier timeline to get more accepted
bursaries. We need the budget to accept them. I think we spent almost
the entire bursary budget on DC18? The reason more weren't granted was
that there wasn't a budget for it.
So, if you're expecting to have 250% of the accommodation bursaries, in
DC19 that we had in DC18, you'll need a *much* larger budget for them.
And we'll need to find 250% more people, that we'd grant a bursary to,
to apply, and motivate their applications, sufficiently to receive one.
If you really really think you're going to have such a big DebConf, have
a look at the past numbers. Our biggest recent DebConf, 15, was in Germany
https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf15/FinalReport/InNumbers
There were only 161 attendees with sponsored food and accommodation.
DebConf15's budget is also interesting reading:
https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/data/archive/dc15/blob/master/budget/budget.ods
DebConf's content is pretty similar every year. And the content is
mostly aimed at Debian Members, Developers and Package Maintainers. We
have very little content aimed at users. When we do, it's mostly on the
Open Day.
I'd say the audience we get is largely the same people coming back every
year. But also a number of locals. Compare the number of Germans in the
DC15 attendance, to other DebConfs. Germany has a big Debian Member
population, compared to Brazil. Germany is also very cheap and easy to
travel to, for a large percentage of Debian Members.
http://www.perrier.eu.org/weblog/2014/07/29#devel-countries-201407
We find that when a DebConf is near Europe, it tends to be big (~500
people). And when it's further away, it tends to be smaller (~300).
Old final reports tend to have graphs of attendance. Here is a nice
summary that the DC15 people prepared:
https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/data/archive/dc15/blob/master/budget/past-numbers
There have been some outliers from the Generalizations I made above.
DC11 got a large amount of government sponsorship, and could afford to
sponsor many more attendees - the kind of numbers you're talking about.
Now, Brazil obviously has a huge number of other, very popular Free
Software events, and you think that we'll get a decent number of
attendees from that community, to come. This is really the wild-card
in this conversation. From everything I've said above, my guess would be
that DC19 is about 300 attendees.
1. Brazil is not near most Debian Members.
1. Brazil is not cheap to get to for most Debian Members.
So, for DebConf to be bigger than about 300 people, the question is who
these people would be. Presumably Brazilians and other South Americans
who are interested in Free Software.
But will the content of the conference attract such an audience?
OK, I've rambled for long enough :)
Please go and look through the previous DebConf budgets and reports.
SR
--
Stefano Rivera
http://tumbleweed.org.za/
+1 415 683 3272
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