[yapc] "Sold out"

JT Smith admin at yapcna.org
Mon Apr 30 09:19:32 PDT 2012


Thanks for your comments. We did give free passes to every student in and around Madison that wanted them, and advertised that heavily every campus in Madison. When I say "sold out" I don't mean that we actually sold every ticket, I mean that we used every ticket. 

As for saying that it's poor form, that's your opinion and you have a right to it. My opinion is formed by market research, which is not to say that it's the be all end all, only that my goal is not to just run a great YAPC, but also to make sure that we grow the Perl community at large as a result of our efforts. Our goal isn't just to touch those that attend YAPC. There are many ways to do that: making Perl have active and regular releases, having a strong CPAN, having experts in the community like MST, and having companies like cPanel offering jobs are all great ways to keep growing the Perl community. But having strong events is one way I can contribute, and I have. It's no accident that we have sold more tickets than any other YAPC. This happened through meticulous planning and strategic actions of me and the entire YAPC::NA 2012 team; and we're not even close to done. We haven't unveiled our greatest effort in this area yet, so please don't make negative assertions about what is or is not the right way to do it. If after YAPC is over, you still think I'm wrong, then great. I only ask you to indulge me until you can see the whole.  Thank you.


JT Smith
Director, YAPC::NA 2012
http://www.yapcna.org

PS 

Another way you can support Perl is by adding a link to the bottom of your web site, or on your credits / thank you page to http://www.perl.org
	

On Apr 30, 2012, at 11:04 AM, Rob Kinyon wrote:

> For the last session of lightning talks at YAPC Columbus, we didn't
> have a room able to hold everyone. So, we simulcast to a second room
> with monitors. This second room was also the "noisy room". Not
> everyone wants to be attentive and polite while someone else is
> talking, but still want to have the discussion as a background. Given
> that YAPC::NA is now becoming a traditionally-videotaped event, this
> should be trivial to achieve.
> 
> The "selling-out" thing is also rather poor form. The goal of YAPC
> isn't to sell tickets. It's to share knowledge. At Columbus, we gave
> unlimited day-passes to our Platinum sponsors and members of the OSU
> open-source club (whose membership in the leadership team gave us the
> great rates we received from OSU). I think it would be awesome to
> grant day-passes in Madison in a similar fashion. Maybe even advertise
> on WMAD that all students who have contributed to an open-source
> project in the prior 60 days get a free day-pass?
> 
> This is an advocacy conference - be advocates.
> 
> Rob
> 
> On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 08:58, JT Smith <admin at yapcna.org> wrote:
>> Happy to. The problem is finding single rooms that will hold 400+ people. We
>> have the keynote, the lightning talks, the banquet, the Linode Beer Garden,
>> and the cPanel game room. All those events need to be able to support the
>> entire attendance of YAPC in a single room. The University has such spaces,
>> but they aren't all available to YAPC, as they have their own events using
>> them. So the event spaces we could get are limited to around 400 people.
>> 
>> That said, YAPC organizers would do well to get fixed facilities so they can
>> "Sell Out". Selling out has an important psychological effect on the
>> community and even beyond the community. It says that what we're doing is
>> important, and valuable. It makes people curious what's going on at YAPC,
>> and makes them more eager to attend the next event.
>> 
>> I'm not saying you should go for a deliberately small facility, just one you
>> think you have the ability to sell out. The largest YAPC::NA in
>> history (YAPC Chicago 2008) was in the 380  range, and last year's YAPC was
>> less than 300 people. So booking a facility that can support 400 people is
>> certainly not going small. However, if next year's YAPC organizers think
>> they'll only be able to pull in 300 people, then they shouldn't be booking a
>> space for 500. They should do 325 or 350, something just over what they
>> think they can sell out. So they have a reasonable goal to shoot for, but
>> still have the ability to sell out.
>> 
>> This is of course just my opinion, but I know many people share it. If the
>> organizers of YAPC::NA 2013 choose not to take this advice that's absolutely
>> fine. It's their YAPC, and I wouldn't dream of telling them how to run it.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> JT Smith
>> Director, YAPC::NA 2012
>> http://www.yapcna.org
>> 
>> PS
>> 
>> Another way you can support Perl is by adding a link to the bottom of your
>> web site, or on your credits / thank you page to http://www.perl.org
>> 
>> On Apr 30, 2012, at 9:48 AM, Matt S Trout wrote:
>> 
>> It'd be quite nice to see some explanation of which things are limiting
>> additional signups.
>> 
>> 'Some of you might be thinking, “Why would you book such a small venue?”'
>> 
>> Actually, I'm thinking "Why would you say 'sold out' and then say that
>> you hope next year is even bigger and then not bother to actually tell us
>> what the limiting factors were".
>> 
>> Especially since that might help next year's organisers not be sold out :)
>> 
>> --
>> Matt S Trout - Shadowcat Systems - Perl consulting with a commit bit and a
>> clue
>> 
>> http://shadowcat.co.uk/blog/matt-s-trout/
>>   http://twitter.com/shadowcat_mst/
>> 
>> Email me now on mst (at) shadowcat.co.uk and let's chat about how our
>> Catalyst
>> commercial support, training and consultancy packages could help your team.
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Thanks,
> Rob Kinyon

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