I'd suggest asking Mike Halterman the details on that.
Considering that the cost for a conference of that size is in the 6 figure range, raising that kind of money is going to simply be beyond most organizers without serious backing; and I do not believe the foundation can provide or will provide that kind of backing.
-Dan On Mar 31, 2008, at 10:45 PM, Delirium wrote:
Robert Rohde wrote:
Jason, you seem to be under a misconception. Wikimanias are primarily organized by teams of local volunteers and primarily funded by a combination of attendee fees and corporate donors, so they take in about as much money as they spend. Yes, the Foundation does have a role in planning, organization, and financing, but in many ways not the dominant role.
An important role, though, is blessing it as the official worldwide Wikimedia conference. This is what attracts most of the corporate donors, and without that status, it's very difficult to get any funding, so therefore hard to put on a significant conference without prohibitively high attendee fees.
The Atlanta bid team attempted to turn their Wikimania bid into a Wikimedia Conference of the Americas, but as far as I can tell they weren't able to keep the sponsors on board once it was no longer the international event, and it basically fell through.
-Mark
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