[Yapc-na-organizers] ideas for housing payments

[Jim Brandt]

Jeremy,

The general advice I would offer is keep it simple. Don't make your life 
a misery trying to accommodate a bunch of confusing combinations. Think 
about other big conferences you may have attended and use that as your 
guideline. OSCON, for example, does the earlybird thing and a few 
options with tutorials, but they keep it simple with food.

I think the general plan you outlined below is very sensible for 
registration/housing. For Buffalo we had to pay in one lump sum as well, 
so we collected money and gave UB a single check for the housing. We had 
one or two stay long, and I dealt with those individually as exceptions 
rather than trying to offer it as an option for everyone.

For food, I agree with Josh. Go with the card and keep it simple. YAPC 
attendees are a resourceful bunch and will sort things out for 
themselves given reasonable options.

Also agree with Josh not to target a shopping cart for this round. Keep 
the price combinations somewhat simple so you don't need the full 
shopping card functionality.

Hope this helps. Feel free to throw a proposed 'final' pricing structure 
up on the wiki and poll us again. Then we can comment one more time 
before you go live. Also, glad to hear you're working on this stuff now. 
Seems to me the timing is just about right to be working out these details.

Jim


Jeremy Fluhmann wrote:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> I'm working on the housing and food worksheets that UH wants filled 
> out.  The form states that the group is responsible for making payment 
> on the dorms and meal plans instead of the individual person staying in 
> the room.  Here's my request for ideas.  I'm trying to figure out how to 
> structure the conference pricing to include housing and meals.  One 
> option is to have separate prices on the YAPC::NA site for the following:
> early bird - $85
> early bird w/single room (3 nights) - $184
> early bird w/double room (3 nights) - $145
> normal price - $100
> normal w/single room (3 nights) - $199
> normal w/double room (3 nights) - $160
> 
> But, then there's also the food costs:
> 3 meal packing in the RFoC (Real Food on Campus) all-you-can-eat - 
> $21.25/day
> the 3-meal package is broken up into the meals as following:
>  * Breakfast - $5.75
>  * Lunch - $6.75
>  * Dinner - $8.75
> So, assuming someone's first meal is breakfast on Monday and last meal 
> is lunch on Wednesday (minus the auction dinner):
>  $21.25 * 2 + 5.75 + 6.75 - 8.75 = $46.25
> But, if people are like me, they rarely eat breakfast and I never ate 
> breakfast at YAPC::NA 2006.  Also, I know several people went off-campus 
> for dinner last year.  And I'd rather not include prices for variations 
> on food.
> 
> We might try to utilize UH's Cougar card, a declining value meal card.  
> Then, we could include something like:
> w/ $20 Cougar card
> w/ $40 Cougar card
> 
> That would include 6 more prices in the pricing scheme.  I liked the 
> "shopping cart" from last year.  I'm wondering if future ACT-hosted 
> sites could implement a shopping cart.  Another alternative to the meal 
> pricing is to just not include it on the conference pricing and let 
> everyone fend for themselves.
> 
> Another problem is accommodating the people staying longer than the 
> "typical" conference stay Sun-night through Wednesday afternoon.  We 
> need to be able to accommodate these people with housing and food.
> 
> Should we try and include "all" pricing options in the choices for the 
> conference?  Should we separate the housing and food out into an 
> external shopping cart?  Should we separate out only the special cases 
> of extended stays?
> 
> I welcome any and ALL thoughts and ideas.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jeremy
> 
> 
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-- 
Jim Brandt
Conferences Chair
The Perl Foundation
email: cbrandt at perlfoundation.org
IM: cbrandtbuffalo at mac.com
perlmonks: cbrandtbuffalo