DrupalCamp Colorado 2010 June 26th and 27th

Hey folks!

We finalized the dates. It is now the 26th and 27th of June.

We've got strong interest from lots of the same great Drupal community presenters who made last year such a great event and are hoping to get 300 attendees this year!

If you have suggestions on people who you really want to see come speak...send them an invite or mention them in a comment here.

We had a wonderful sprint yesterday to work on the camp site. The design is strong, the content is great, we built it using features which lets us contribute it back as part of the COD install profile.

But of course there came a moment when we created the product node in Ubercart: what is the cost of the camp?

Jon Clark and I put on our financial analysis hats and did some work. We based the spreadsheet on real numbers from previous years updated to match some known costs and estimated attendees from this year. Here are the important details.

I'd love to get feedback as to whether this feels like a reasonable structure.

• We plan to get about 50% of revenue from attendees and 50% from sponsors. This has been a goal of other camps/cons and it feels pretty good as a balancing point. We reviewed the list of sponsors from last year, the list of folks interested for this year and we feel like we can hit those numbers on fundraising.
• The camp will cost about $23,000 for about 320 people. That's $70 per person though the marginal cost of adding one more person is about $50.
• We want to keep the camp extremely affordable to help reduce the barriers to entry for the price-sensitive members of our community. And for planning reasons it's best if we get people to sign up early. So, we propose a ticket price of $20 for the first 50 tickets, $30 for the next 150 tickets, and $50 for anyone who buys a ticket in the last week. There would also be an "individual sponsor" price at $75 which includes a t-shirt. All camp sponsors would get t-shirts for people included in their sponsorship.
• The big cost (70%!) of the budget goes toward food! We got a great deal on the venue but have to use campus catering which limits our ability to get creative on food options. We also heard the feedback from last year that sending people off-site didn't work for lunch. So, all of our projections are based on the idea that we have to provide lunch for everyone. We also budgeted for coffee/tea.
• For financial flexibility (in case the number of attendees isn't where we think it will be, and/or sponsorships don't materialize as we plan) we can just reduce the food by eliminating coffee, eliminating lunch one day, etc.

We are still finalizing the sponsor benefits and Jon is in charge of that so he'll post on it for feedback when it's done (probably "soon").

Wifi

One other important note: the WiFi on campus is pretty good (it handles the students, after all). But anecdotally from students the coverage is not perfect in all parts of all the classrooms. We did a campus visit to see all the classrooms and walked around inside the room doing downloads/uploads to see if we could get a consistent signal. It worked well in those simple tests, but we hope people will either be forgiving or offer to get involved now to find solutions. Campuses are not known for doing things quickly so we need a volunteer to step up now if they are interested in this.

Remind me... which campus? Auraria/Tivoli? I know you've mentioned it but I'm not finding it this morning.

The financial strategy sounds very reasonable, especially the tiered ticket pricing. IMHO, the offsite lunches work well if you're in an area with lots of options (e.g., the Moscone Center in San Francisco), and less well if you have just a couple of options nearby (e.g., the PPA). If we'll be in downtown Denver I'd be happy to walk somewhere for lunch and bypass the campus dining monopoly. Please don't skip coffee. :)

my two cents:

1. $50 could be a psychological barrier to latecomers (although it may act as a psychological incentive for early registration)
2. i cringe a bit at the food cost and my own low expectations for food quality -- would organized excursions for off-site food plus a 90-minute minimum lunch break could make the difference? i'll volunteer to work on the off-site food planning if it is deemed workable

how much of the food budget is for coffee/tea?

for those wondering about the venue, it's the Auraria Campus, immediately adjacent to Denver's downtown

http://www.ahec.edu/campusmaps/maps.htm

Hi, all! I'm going to be a first-time attendee, and I'm very interested in a beginner session as well!

I also happen to work at Auraria Library, and I could probably get approval for us to use one of our classroom spaces for just such a session. :) We have two recently refurbished spaces that are MOSTLY open that weekend, one with 34 laptops, and one with 29. The laptops can be put away, too, if we didn't need them--I would imagine that most folks will bring their own--but they are internet-connected. Let me know if this possibility is of interest ASAP, and I can put a hold on one those spaces.

Wifi on campus has had some capacity issues of late, but campus IT has improved this, and hopefully traffic will be low on a weekend in June anyway. :)

Also, just to clarify, Auraria Library ISN'T actually a public library, but we are open to the public. We're often mistaken for being a branch of DPL, but we're the academic library for UC Denver, Metro State, and CCD. :)

Nina

Hi all,

I have been watching this thread with great interest because I'm a beginner. I am already blocking my calendar for Friday, June 25th so I can attend this session.