[Chicago] dropping the ball and all

[Ted Pollari]

On Jan 2, 2007, at 9:45 AM, Carl Karsten wrote:

> So far I have 600 attendees and $150 reg fee.  which may be all  
> there is.
> hoping to hear how many/how much $ can be committed to by whoever  
> it is that
> will be committing.

I'm not sure if I followed that completely, but I think you're asking  
if the Python Software Foundation or anyone else bankrolls PyCon  
beyond what registration fees cover, right?

If so, the answer is, sorta... There are corporate sponsors, and  
looking at the 2006/2007 PyCon budget ( http:// 
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pYkW9LgX8G5Pd-GMmhgYPHg ), the  
expected contribution from sponsors is ~30k and there'll be another  
~2k from tutorials, though some tutorial expenses will come out of that.

As for attendance, I'd say we should use 450 people as our rough  
number for budget purposes (and 600 as our minimum maximum for space  
purposes), and assume they're all registering at early-bird rates of  
$195 per person.  This will underestimate the revenue as many people  
do not jump in on the early-bird registration, but it may balance out  
if attendance for 2008 holds steady from 2006 (unlikely, but I tend  
to be conservative when it comes to budgets).  So, call it ~ $250- 
$260 per person in total budgeting.  Check out the pycon budget,  
above and the following for some details of the room reservation  
pattern/numbers we're likely to see.



For room-commitments -- numbers, dates/spread, here's the final info  
from 2006, from an email from Jeff Rush on the PyCon organizers list:
>
> In the contract we had allowed for a maximum of 870 room-nights and  
> we got
> 955, 85 more than expected,  To avoid a penalty we only had to book  
> 80% of
> 870 or 696, which we exceeded by 259 room-nights.
>
> Not bad!
>
>
>> As you know today is the Cut Off Date for your negotiated
>> sleeping room rate at our hotel.  I did want to give you
>> the final breakdown of reservations that were made at our
>> hotel.
>>
>
> Sun Feb 19:   2 Rms Booked /   0 Rms Contracted
> Mon Feb 20:   3 Rms Booked /   0 Rms Contracted
> Tue Feb 21:   6 Rms Booked /   0 Rms Contracted
> Wed Feb 22:  79 Rms Booked /  10 Rms Contracted
> Thu Feb 23: 201 Rms Booked / 250 Rms Contracted
> Fri Feb 24: 212 Rms Booked/  250 Rms Contracted
> Sat Feb 25: 206 Rms Booked / 250 Rms Contracted
> Sun Feb 26: 103 Rms Booked /  25 Rms Contracted
> Mon Feb 27:  56 Rms Booked /  25 Rms Contracted
> Tue Feb 28:  44 Rms Booked /  25 Rms Contracted
> Wed Mar 01:  33 Rms Booked /  10 Rms Contracted
> Thu Mar 02:  10 Rms Booked /   0 Rms Contracted
>
> Total Number of Group Rooms Booked: 955
> Total Number of Group Rooms Contracted: 870
> *** Congratulations you have meet your contracted Attrition ***
>
> For anyone who makes reservations after the deadline, the contract  
> states
> that *if* they have available rooms, they must offer them at the  
> conference
> rate.  However they are not required to *hold* room space for us  
> anymore.


For reference, the schedule was:

Wed Feb 22: Setup
Thu Feb 23: Tutorials
Fri Feb 24: Conference
Sat Feb 25: Conference
Sun Feb 26: Conference
Mon Feb 27:  sprints
Tue Feb 28:  sprints
Wed Mar 01: sprints
Thu Mar 02:  sprints




-- 
Ted Pollari
Research Programmer
Department of Health Studies
The University of Chicago
tcp at uchicago.edu
773.834.0559