As Wikimedia movement, we have the luxury to approach this question backwards. Instead of thinking about how we will pay for the event (we have many sponsorship opportunities and even a good amount of donations), we can look at who we would want to attend the event. We could design our pricing system such to accommodate that. 

So, maybe we should first answer that question - what would our ideal attendance look like? 

Best,

Lodewijk

2014-03-23 13:48 GMT+01:00 maarten deneckere <maartendeneckere+wikimania@gmail.com>:

Two general thoughts that I think are important.

Firstly, most attendees will pay the conference fee themselves. You cannot compare with the general conference where those (high) fees are paid by the university or company of the attendee.

Secondly, selection of Wikimania 2015 location is a voting process with the public, as such bidders will try to keep to conference fees as low as possible.

I personally support Chan's "four group" hierarchy: Non-Wikimedian price, Wikimedian price, Partial scholarship, Full scholarship, and his hesitance to raise general prices.

Maarten

Wikimania Cape Town

2014-03-23 2:54 GMT+01:00 Deryck Chan <deryckchan@gmail.com>:

Wikimania indeed has a tradition of setting artificially low entry prices for the reasons Nicholas described earlier in this thread. Of course, there's nothing to stop Wikimania 2014 from raising ticket prices. I should remind though that until 2013 we basically have a hierarchy of 4 ticket prices:

1. Non-Wikimedian price: supposedly the full cost (but is still effectively slightly subsidised)
2. Wikimedian price: substantially subsidised entry and food, for those who've paid a lot to travel to the venue from the other side of the world
3. Partial scholarship: for those who can almost / just about afford to attend Wikimania on their own budget, but would use up their savings unless their air travel was subsidised. The partial scholarship encourages them to go to *more* Wikimanias.
4. Full scholarship (for those who simply can't afford Wikimania)

In 2014, the partial scholarship is removed, so I would hesitate to raise the Wikimedian ticket prices, lest we disincentivise "medium-income" Wikimedians (particularly students) from attending. However, by all means consider raising the non-Wikimedian price, or even have a "donor price" (full cost + £100, say?) with a shiny badge to let generous attendees pay more!

Deryck

Deryck

On 23 Mar 2014 08:07, "Charles Gregory" <wmau.lists@chuq.net> wrote:

My impression was that the prices took into account that (a) most members of the Wikimedia community are volunteers (b) most attendees have paid many hundreds, if not thousands of US$ in airfares/accommodation costs to attend, on top of the ticket price.  Volunteers also have to use up their own annual leave (or forgo wages) if their Wikimedia activities are not on behalf of their employer.

You could get away with having separate rates.  The other conference I have experience with, Linux.conf.au, has rates which differ by almost an order of magnitude: Professional $899, Hobbyist $399, Student $99.  (These prices are Australian dollars, which is approx USD +/- 10%)  (IMHO the Hobbyist rate here is still a bit high for a volunteer.)  This conference is, however, a major source of income for Linux Australia, whereas Wikimania is indirectly supported by donations to WMF.

Regards,

Charles

On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Bashour <nicholasbashour@gmail.com> wrote:

For Wikimania 2012, I remember that we wanted to make sure the largest number of people could attend. DC was an expensive enough city that we felt if registration prices were too high, it may discourage some of the people who didn't get scholarships from attending.

That being said, there's no reason why future Wikimanias shouldn't offer various pricing options, like higher "individual sponsorship" registration for those who want to sponsor on a smaller level, student registration, etc.

Sincerely,
Nicholas Michael Bashour

Sent from my iPhone

> Am 22.03.2014 um 19:21 schrieb Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com>:

>
> Proposed prices for Wikimania tickets continue to seem artificially
> low.  I'm not sure what the benefit to this is. Could people who have
> run events in other contexts comment on how you set ticket prices?
>
> In my experience, tickets are set at roughly what it costs for each
> person to attend. Then there may be different sorts of tickets: for
> local supporters & volunteers, for school groups, for students &
> community members, presenters, VIPs & sponsors. Sponsorship helps
> ensure how many tickets of each type there are.  Last-minute tickets
> are more expensive.
>
> This has a few benefits:
> * tickets fully cover the cost of food and materials
> * tickets contribute significantly to covering the cost of the event
> * scholarships and reimbursements for attendance (for scholars,
> professionals, academics all getting covered by their home
> institutions), in paying for tickets, cover the full cost of those
> people attending the event.
> * more accurate headcounts in advance.
>
> Warmly,
> Sam
>
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> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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