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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimania-l mailing list
> Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

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