[EuroPython] Sharing EPC financial risk

[Tom Deprez]

> It seems reasonable to me that we who run Python-related
> companies could share some limited risk for the EPC between
> ourselves. If many of us chip in, the worst case cost for
> each one of us should still be fairly small.
>
> Has anything like this been in play for the past events?

Interesting approach... yes, it has been in play in the past events (eg
2003)... but not many companies jumped in... it even turned out that P3B had
to pay the loss in money. This year even less companies were interested.
Even, though some sponsorship/donation systems were set-up (that didn't
require much money from a company), almost nothing was received (only from 1
company).
This all concludes to me that nobody in the python world really wants to pay
for things like this (see last 2 EPC years). If now at a sudden they would,
it would make me happy, but I would also have a bitter feeling.

> I guess some kind of sponsor agreement, where sponsors
> pay a nominal fee for some kind of exposure (like the
> ads in the brochure &c) could be combined with a possibly
> higher cost in the case of a financial loss for the
> conference.

hehe, forget it. Nobody wants to sponsor... look at last EPC conferences.
And I don't think you would get any sponsor when you tell them: thanks for
the add, but know that it might get higher if the conference goes down.
(They wouldn't even pay for the add, if they knew the conference could
fail...)

> I'm not sure about tax deductability for a pure loss
> coverage guarantee. After all, to be tax deductable, an
> expence should benefit the company making the payment. I'm
> pretty sure it's ok if the risk premium is made part of a
> sponsoring agreement where a PR benefit is included though.
>
> I guess it would be easier to construct such a joint risk
> sharing system if there was some formal organization that
> could be a contractual partner.

Also see the Zope-Europe association, how hard it is form them to get some
company members.
This all sounds nice in theory, but in practice it doesn't.

Everytime when money gets involved it doesn't work, which in my feeling is
very pitty.

T.