Time & Money Costs

[Richard Powell]

Hi,

Paul asked me to provide some insight into the costs of running a workshop, which I thought was a great idea.

Space

£50 per day is the cheapest I've seen.  I cant find the url now but there is a website that collates a whole load of conference room type spaces in Newcastle city centre.  Anyone know the URL? Honestly though, if you run a workshop you try to not pay for the space. Find local organisations that want to be associated with such events, perhaps they:

• Want the advertising
  
• Want to give something back to their membership
• Want to see events like yours in the area 

The first time I ran my workshop a guy who wanted to attend it could book a conference room where he worked. Above all talk publicly and openly to the community in Newcastle.  They want to see events like workshops take place, so if they realise you need help and they can give it, they will. 

Time

Material: For the first workshop I spent 4-5 days preparing the material... its a lot of work.  But perhaps you can split the work with some-one else, perhaps your subject would require less material, perhaps you will decide against a full day workshop. Work of the idea that for every hour of workshop, you'll need to spend 5 hours preparing material. Running a workshop is very much "time up front", the good news is that once you commit this time, you can etach the same material again & again.  You'll probably want to make small tweaks based on feedback but hopefully that will an hour or so.

Selling tickets:   It took me a 3-4 hours to set up my first workshop on EventBrite, then probably an hour for each subsequant one. Advertisitng the tickets takes a lot of time. It involves constantly guaging interest, taking down names, nudging those names to buy, being helpful, asking the community to spread the message.  Perhaps this is something where this group can really help.

Advertising

• The most effective way is twitter.  By a country mile, grow your following today and every day :-)
  
• Codeworks is probably the second best way to advertise. Their most effective method ( emailing their members ) has involved offering discounted tickets to codeworks members.
  
• Partnering with organiations like The Toffee Factory provides advertising - I am unsure how effective this is yet though.
• I am trying google ads, but so far this is completly inefective. Its the only advertising Ive paid for & it hasn't done a thing
• Facebook adds is an option for the future

Other costs

• Depending on the venue you may need to pay for refreshments
• I take people out for food afterwards & pay for it.  I do this because I want the event to be as social as possible.

Profit

Not much.  I've yet to cover my free-lance rate for the workshop day, never mind start to re-coup the 4-5 days put into the workshop material. You could make good profit, but I sell my tickets at £35-45 because it opens the workshop up to more people.  So what are the benefits?  There are a ton, I wrote about some of them here: http://www.kernelmag.com/scene/1495/giving-back-the-workshop-way/

Any questions feel free to tweet, email, or reply to this message.

Richard

[Paul Callaghan]

Excellent discussion! Thanks

Just to underline: SuperMondays is also keen to support more
workshops, so that's another way to publicise and to get support.

What's your thoughts on "class size"? My personal preference is to
keep numbers low so as to encourage more informality, flexibility, and
more interaction, say around 10 people. (For me, many more than this
and I risk going back into university lecture mode...)

So, I'd prefer (say) two events with 10 people to one event with 20
people. I would also expect ticket price to vary inversely with class
size, so asking more for a smaller group size since (I believe) the
experience will be more useful - eg able to cater more for
individuals' needs, possibility of deeper learning.

In the ideal world, it'd be great to do one-to-one teaching, but this
will generally be too expensive. So, we're always looking to find a
good compromise between costs and outcomes, and work within what the
"market" will support. [1]

I think there's also room for open discussion and negotiation about
costs, ie maybe a cost can be proposed initially for a workshop and
some justification presented, then it's up to customers and providers
to negotiate on a final price.

Bit of a ramble here, but main points are: think about varying class
size, think about how to link pricing to this, and maybe be open to
negotiation over the price so you can fit the market.

Paul

[1] It's interesting to consider how economics affects teaching in
universities: there too, it's a balancing act, and in the current
climate the balancing is getting harder - which has implications for
the quality of learning. That's one reason why I'm keen on exploring
alternatives!