[yapc] "Sold out"

[Casey West]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM, 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.


For what it's worth[0], not everyone will come to every plenary session.
Ticket holders will not come for whatever reason, speakers will fail to
show up, the hallway track will not always end when a keynote begins.
People will sleep in or go for a scenic bike ride around a lake instead.

I've been involved in a handful of conference organizations in the last few
years and there are a couple of concerns everyone has about plenary events.

1) The room has seats for $MAX people.
2) The fire marshall is a looming threat if we exceed $MAX.
3) If we exceed $MAX our some attendees will miss out and have a poor
experience.

I understand it's a difficult dance. 1) is a constant, although people
stand and sit on the floor as a matter of course. I've never seen 2) happen
at a conference venue (although I've seen it at a hotel room party...). 3)
is managed with messaging.

I'll buy you a beer no matter what, JT, but I'll buy you an extra nice beer
if any plenary session actually reaches the fire marshall's capacity
restrictions. ;-)

Future conference organizers, you should certainly be aware that the
guessing game of attendance is difficult.

- Casey

[0] That's just, like, my opinion, man. And also my experience. But whatevs.
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