Fwd: Barcamp Auckland 2 Sponsorship

[Stephen Collins]

I saw a mention of BarCamp Auckland on Twitter and decided to say "Hi". Even offered to sling a little help their way. I'm sure they're running a great, tight event, but $1200 for all-day catering?

Read and tremble.

trib(olicious - thanks to Ajay)

Ludwig's latest email to me with my previous and his first interspered below:

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Barcamp Auckland" <barcamp...@ludwignz.com>

Date: 8 April 2008 6:48:13 PM

To: "Stephen Collins" <tr...@acidlabs.org>

Subject: Re: Barcamp Auckland 2 Sponsorship

I understand that these events are meant to be organized on-the-fly but we do things slightly differently. I understand if you don't want to sponsor the food after finding out it will cost up to $1200 but I'm hoping you'd still like to sponsor some part of the event. I'll try to outline why, and justify our expenses.

Last year, we had 80 attendees. We started at 9 and finished at around 5.30 (our final sessions ran over.) Around 10 people had to leave around 5 to catch flights back to Wellington and such but most people stayed throughout the entire day.

We have lanyards and name badges but these are hardly expensive (they add about $1.20 to each person.) The main costs are the t-shirts and the food. We believe the little touches count.

We get the venue and wifi free, provided we use their caterers. The catering is awesome and really cheap (as I said, around $10pp.) This includes morning tea, lunch and then coffee, tea and biscuits throughout the day.

The t-shirts are the highest expense. We believe that t-shirts should be able to be re-worn without looking like a cheap conference-tee. We design the t-shirts with care and then get them printed with the sponsor logos on the back. It looks good and the sponsors get a good deal out of it (their logo will be re-worn on the attendees' backs later on.)

Yes, this is a high quality Barcamp, and we pride ourselves on the quality. But we don't stray from the key principles of the event. None of the content is organised beforehand. Schedules are made up on the day. The events are free. And everything is kept very transparent. This is still very much an UNconference.

Last year we had nothing but compliments about the event. The sponsors were happy. The attendees were buzzing. We don't want that to change.

I hope you would still like to be part of it,

Ludwig

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 7:50 PM, Stephen Collins <tr...@acidlabs.org> wrote:

Ludwig

On 08/04/2008, at 2:03 PM, Barcamp Auckland wrote:

Thank you so much for offering to sponsor Barcamp Auckland 2. For this event we are realistically expecting 120 guests but will limit it to 150. For this reason, we'll be making our calculations on a minimum of 120 people.

That's an awesome turnout for somewhere the size of Auckland. You must have a very active community. Sydney got somewhere in the vicinity of 150-200 for the whole weekend just gone. And never more than 60-80 at one time, I'd guess.

From last year, we calculated each attendee cost us about $35 for the day. This is when we add up all our costs, and divide it by the number of attendees. This includes the venue, wifi, food and schwag (lanyard/name-badge and shirt.) For more info:  http://ludwignz.com/index.php/site/journal_entry/more_on_barcamp_auckland/

You look like you're taking a *really* heavy, conference (as opposed to unconference) approach. We do big sticky labels and a marker for name badges - http://www.flickr.com/photos/adwentures/2391644354/in/set-72157604406127111/, no lanyards.

This means you can choose to pay for the food; this sponsorship will be around $1200 as catering is around $10pp.

Really? I sponsored lunch from Pizza Hut at BarCamp Sydney and fed 60ish people for under AU$160.

There was some bottled water, but that's about AU$25/24x600ml bottles.

I'm still keen to help out, but you're trying too hard, mate. It's an UNconference.

Steve

[Mark Pesce]

What, cheeze doodles and coke aren't good enough?

[Stephen Collins]

On Apr 8, 7:23 pm, Mark Pesce <m...@markpesce.com> wrote:
> What, cheeze doodles and coke aren't good enough?

Apparently not. They obviously take the event very f'n seriously!

Check the Web 2.0 slickness of the web site - click the "SIGN UP"
button - http://bca.geek.nz/

S

[Mark Pesce]

Wow. Someone just wet their javascript pants, didn't they?

[Ajay Ranipeta]

gosh, these guys seem wayyy too flash for barcamp IMHO :p