BarCamp Charlotte

[Philip]

We are just starting to pull together for a BarCamp in Charlotte, NC.

We have already put up the page at http://www.barcamp.org/BarCampCharlotte
and also have our own site at http://www.barcampcharlotte.com
(the .org is coming soon).

Just wanted to push out the news for people in the area to come along
and get involved. We are looking for sponsors (limit is $250) and we
are proud to have the Fedora Project as our first one.

We are looking for a bit of feedback from other BarCamps..

a) Are T-Shirts a big win - is it common to use that as a way to
promote the sponsors (since they aren't being offers speaking slots)
b) How common are entrance fees? Do they put people off?

Cheers

P

[Douglas Whitfield]

On Nov 26, 2:38 pm, Philip <Philip.Do...@gmail.com> wrote:

> a) Are T-Shirts a big win - is it common to use that as a way to
> promote the sponsors (since they aren't being offers speaking slots)

I like my one from the Milwaukee one and I know they had them in RDU
when I was there. I don't believe they are required.

> b) How common are entrance fees?  Do they put people off?

never heard of an entrance fee. I realize with the economic downturn
sponsorship might be harder to come by, but I'd still think you should
get enough for a place and food. If you can find someone at UNCC to
book a room that should take care of a lot of the money right there.

[Eric Skiff]

For me, the event is the important part. T-Shirts and food are definitely nice, but not strictly necessary.

If you have to choose between t-shirts and charging at the door, consider charging instead for t-shirts. BarcampAustinII did a "print on demand" t-shirt setup with a local printing company and brought a few different designs as well, including a wordpress design. That seemed to go over pretty well.

As for using the t-shirts as sponsor promotion, I am personally strongly against letting Barcamp t-shirts become total sponsor billboards (I've seen some from *camps that are rediculous), but a tasteful sponsor logo somewhere on the shirt probably isn't a big deal. My feeling is that sponsors are supporting the community at a resonable expense, and have the opportunity to get their name out there and connect with actual users and for lack of a better term "early adopters". Yes, make sure your sponsors are happy, but don't undersell the value of what they're getting as well. Their logo on the wall & wiki, a public thank you at beginning and end of the event, and the chance to talk directly with the people they're trying to reach is often all sponsors are looking for.

As for food, the main factor (in my opinion) is how easy it is to get. If you've got reasonably priced food on location (as was the case with BarCampNYC3 at Brooklyn Poly), bringing in food is much less of an issue. If people have to leave to get food, definitely consider bringing it in so that the conversations can continue.

That's my 2c - I've been on both sides of these issues with BarCamp and PodCamp NYC, so I'm happy to answer more specific questions as to how we handled things and how it was received by the community.

-Eric

--
Eric Skiff
http://clipmarks.com
718-809-8692

Blog: http://glitchnyc.com | Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericskiff | NYCResistor: http://NYCResistor.com

[Christopher St John]

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Philip <Philip...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> a) Are T-Shirts a big win - is it common to use that as a way to
> promote the sponsors (since they aren't being offers speaking slots)
>

t-shirts are definitely optional.

> b) How common are entrance fees? Do they put people off?
>

in events (barcamp and not) that i've helped with, the attitude was
that there shouldn't be a financial test. that is, if there was a fee,
it should be optional. students and others with very limited amounts
of money shouldn't be excluded (or humiliated into spending money
they can't afford)

that said, some people react very negatively to the idea of any
sort of fee at all. i believe they are in the minority, but ymmv.

--
Christopher St. John
http://artofsystems.blogspot.com

[Frederic Baud]

> a) Are T-Shirts a big win - is it common to use that as a way to
> promote the sponsors (since they aren't being offers speaking slots)

Right, t-shirts are optional. The same for food, unless you organize
an all-day event.

> b) How common are entrance fees? Do they put people off?

When you organize an all-day event, I'm very much in favor of having a
small fee. After organizing events where food was sponsored and we got
50% of drop-out, we were left with a lot of food because we didn't
want to run in the problem of not having enough food if 70% of the
people showed up. My take is that, under these conditions, a fee of
the order of an ordinary meal at a local restaurant is a good way to
reach 80%+ attendance and avoid unnecessary waste. It should also be
clear that the fee should not prevent anyone from attending and entry
should freely be provided on-demand. I've never received any inquiry
not to pay, which probably means that some people were put-off by the
price of a normal meal and were shy to ask. But there is probably a
trade-off to make between not wasting resources and having every
single committed people in the room.

Cheers,

Frederic

On Dec 8, 10:27 pm, "Christopher St John" <ckstj...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Philip Dodds]

Thanks everyone for the feedback,  certainly got me thinking.

On the T-Shirts I think it was one of two things for me - something that would be free to the speakers as a take-home for being more participate and secondly a way for the sponsors to get their names out there (ie. logo on t-shirt).

The Food is certainly an interesting thought - I hadn't really thought through the management of the meals.  We are putting up a registration plugin this week to start capturing names, and numbers it might be worth putting something in there that people check is they are will to pay a small subsidy towards food.

I'll get an update out as soon as we get through the next round.

Thanks everyone - and I'm sure we'll be back for more advice :)

Cheers

P

[Roz Duffy]

Here is how we approached the food & t-shirt issues at BarCamp Philly (http://barcampphilly.org)

Food
Originally we were going to provide lunch, which was going to be some crappy sandwich in a fixed space a few blocks from our event for a price per head. I was really nervous about that without knowing for sure what our attendance numbers would be. We decided to shift our food investment into providing coffee / tea / breakfast pastries. This was a great success during the morning schedule planning and it was ALL eaten, every last coffee cake, every last drop of coffee. It didn't run out right away, people were able to come back throughout the morning up until lunch. We were pretty happy to not waste anything.

Our location, University of the Arts (http://uarts.edu), was ideal because it was directly across the street from an awesome food court which is really not very busy on the weekends. We provided a list of local places to grab food, but the food court had a variety of delicious options and allowed people to eat in large groups.  We got lucky on that one.

In order to support some friends in our local community and to provide more treats and snacks, we provided a post-lunch spread of cupcakes from Open Source Cupcakes: http://opensourcecupcakes.com/
http://flickr.com/photos/stellargirl/3016927483/in/pool-barcampphilly

This was a HUGE hit because cupcakes are delicious and people appreciated the afternoon pick-me-up.

T-shirts
We felt pretty strongly about accommodating a variety of sizes in the t-shirts, which got a little crazy, but worked out in the end. In our online registration process, we included a size survey which helped us choose how many to get of each size.  The Philadelphia community is pretty diverse and we were able to provide a variety of mens' and womens' sizes.

We decided to heavily promote that the first 200 people who signed in the day of the event would get a shirt. We had 250 register and 170 show up,  We ended up having a lot of shirts left over, so we sold them at the afterparty for $5 each and put the proceeds into the bar tab.

Our shirt design was inspired by wordle.net, you can check it out here:
http://www.barcampphilly.org/2008/11/11/wordle-up/

We wanted to have a really cool shirt, which was actually inspired by all the awesome t-shirty goodness that has come out of BarCamp Milwaukee
http://barcampmilwaukee.com/t-shirt-contest

Design something that people will want to wear! And find creative ways to incorporate the sponsor logos. I think next time we might try something more unified in that area, although we worked with a great designer who was able to display all the logos nicely on the back.

Admission
We kept our event completely free and we would like to continue to do so.  We had a great showing and I really think you have to work hard to promote your event in the months / weeks leading up to it to guarantee a good turnout.  Podcamp Philly charged $20 this year to ensure more of a turnout, and to their credit, they donated all the proceeds to the Science Leadership Academy, a great high school in the city (http://www.scienceleadership.org). If you want to charge so that people don't blow it off, I think it's admirable to plan on donating it to a good cause.  Otherwise, in the spirit of BarCamp, I think it should be a free event. If you want to charge, call it something else!

Good luck with your event, can't wait to hear how it goes!

Cheers,
Roz

--
Roz Duffy
www.stellargirl.com
twitter.com/stellargirl

[Pete Prodoehl]

Well, everyone else already weighed in, and I pretty much agree. :)

For BarCamps in Milwaukee, we always do a shirt, and putting the sponsor
names on the back is one more way for them to get exposure, but yeah, a
venue comes first, and then food, and then shirts.

BarCampMadison did not have shirts, which made me a little sad, as it
would have been a nice thing to promote Madison (and not just Milwaukee)
as well as the BarCamp idea.

For DrupalCampWisconsin, we did a shirt design and people could order
online (we didn't make any money from it, but just wanted to offer it as
an option.)

With the smaller camps coming up this year in Milwaukee (FoodCamp,
PhotoCamp) I'm not sure we'll do shirts, but maybe we'll go the "make
available online" route...

Pete