On 7/28/08, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is it reasonable to suggest that we should plan for a lot more because
> it could be argued the UK is easier to get to than Alexandria? I may
> be wrong in this assumption, but it seems to me that places that are
> more accessible for the parts of the world with the largest
> concentrations of Wikimedians (US, Europe) are going to get more
> people at the conference.
The counter argument is that, whatever we do, it's likely to be more
expensive here than in Egypt, which may discourage some people. We can
try and get all kinds of sponsorship, but the basic costs are just so
much greater that I can't see us getting the prices down as low as
they were this year.
That's a pretty defeatist attitude! If we ever want to justify Wikimania happening in UK, we will need as much sponsorship as we can get - and that could include things like Oyster cards for London (credit to JamesF for idea). Sufficient sponsorship would allow us to provide accommodation at a more reasonable absorbed cost, not the actual booking cost, etc etc.
Cormac