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<TITLE>Re: [Yapc-na-organizers] Tasks</TITLE>
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<DIV id=idOWAReplyText99956 dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT face=Tahoma size=2>On Mon 9/18/2006 1:03 PM, Joshua McAdams
wrote:<BR></FONT><FONT size=2>> Some companies liked the large document with
sponsorable items and<BR>> others were happy to just have the quick summary
of what they get for<BR>> how much :) In retrospect, managing a mix of
'item' sponsors and<BR>> general cash sponsors was kind of a headache.
It would have been much<BR>> easier for me to just to work with the cash
levels to begin with and<BR>> only have item-specific sponsorships at the
sponsor's request. Still,<BR>> having a banquet sponsor or, as the
Pittsburgh Perl Workshop seems to<BR>> have done, room sponsors, might be
workable. I would stop there and<BR>> take general cash sponsorship for
everything beyond those few<BR>> big-ticket items.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>I never thought about breaking venue
sponsorship up into pieces, such as allowing sponsorship of individual
rooms. That's a great idea! Sponsors could offer to sponsor all or
part of a room and have their name(s) listed next to the room(s), or
something. It would be eaiser to get a company to pay for all or part of a
room and have thier name displayed/associated with the room in someway rather
than asking for sponsorship of the venue as a whole.</DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>> Beyond that, the job fair was a big hit. I
talked to a recruiter at a<BR>> company that I worked for and asked what a
reasonable price would be<BR>> for entrance in the fair. They said that
$500 was a price that would<BR>> be hard to say no to, so that was the number
that I went with for<BR>> entrance to the job fair. Of course, for
smaller companies I reduced<BR>> the price, but $500 was a good starting
point that wouldn't get an<BR>> immediate no.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>I thought the job fair was a great idea at this year's
YAPC. As far as I could tell, it seemed well received. I'm
definitely hoping to do it for 2007.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>> Another good source of income was the post-YAPC
classes. I would<BR>> definitely encourage doing these again.
There are tons of good and<BR>> recognized instructors that are very willing
to help out (and make<BR>> some extra cash). $200/student paid for the
rooms for the classes,<BR>> made YAPC $5,000, and paid out $12,000 to the
instructors.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>I've already contacted Damian and brian (Randal has
scheduling conflicts with both possible dates for YAPC), and both seem willing
to do it again. </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>> One thing we did instead was
'company-passes'. Basically, a local<BR>> company could purchase
x-seats at the conference and could have that<BR>> number of employees in
sessions at any given time. Of course, we<BR>> didn't police it
closely, so it might have been abused. Still, it got<BR>> us out of
giving away passes and made the companies feel better. If I<BR>>
remember correctly, we even did this for some companies that didn't<BR>>
sponsor us. Basically, they couldn't have their entire department
out<BR>> for three days and couldn't justify buying passes for people to
only<BR>> attend a hand-full of sessions. Having a seat reserved
allowed them<BR>> to rotate employees going to the conference and made
financial sense<BR>> enough that they bought the passes.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>I like the 'company-passes' idea. I could see
possibly announcing this towards the end of registration to attract some last
minute attendees. 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.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>Thanks Josh!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>Jeremy</DIV></FONT></DIV>
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