[Yapc-na-organizers] "Auction Bucks" and "sponsorship rewards" ideas (Re: Tasks)

[Bob Clancy]

>From: Jeremy Fluhmann <jeremy at msc.tamu.edu>
...
Jeremy wrote:> I could also see working something out for the auction dinner to try and bring all of the 'rotating employees' to the dinner and hopefully generate more money for TPF.

    Potentially dangerous since we really end up loosing money on the auction (once you consider the cost of the dinner itself).  Yes, we usually try and get a company to sponsor (or at least assist_with/defray) the cost of the auction.  I understand that the auction is expected and traditional, but as the size of YAPC::NA increases, we may eventually have to rethink doing this.  Call me a party-pooper!  I think the dinner is good, and is a draw for the conference itself, but adding greater numbers increases the burden on getting a sponsor for the dinner/auction meal/venue.  I'd say we just sell extra tickets ala-carte at a price that will cover the actual room/meal cost that has not been sponsored.

    That does bring up another nice idea/incentive to get higher levels of sponsorship:  with the very highest tiers of sponsorship, we could give a set number of extra dinner tickets.  (The idea being, sponsors with bucks might have friends who will be willing to spend more money at the action.)

    A third idea (which I mentioned to Uri) was to consider selling "auction bucks".  A pre-paid amount of money to use in the auction.  You could consider giving a free meal/auction ticket to the extras if they buy $75 worth of auction bucks.  (I know there are some pitfalls to this idea:  like we'd want to make sure to limit the number of auction bucks sold, so that people who buy them can be sure to find something that they want to bid on/win.  I don't think giving refunds on auction bucks would be a good idea.  Perhaps there could be some black-market arbitrage going on among participants to make sure the auction bucks get used up.

-- Bob