What's with the poly conferences??

[danaeris]

Bah.

So I just did a little looking around at the conferences that are within reasonable driving distance from Toronto.

-PolyLiving is in February in Philadelphia. It may not run again, but if it does, early reg is $155, latest reg is $205, and hotel rooms are $109.

-The PMM retreat in Vermont has a cap of 50 attendees, and costs $160 including food, and is kid-free.

-East Coast Loving More is near Albany NY. It costs a whopping $375-495/person including food (unclear based on their website what kind of lodging is or is not included...).

So apparently, to attend poly conferences you need to be rich. At least in this neighbourhood.

Maybe I expect too much. I'm spoiled with fan-cons like Arisia, where the price is about $50 to get in, and you can split your hotel room with a bunch of people to cut corners, or stay with a friend, or whatever. I guess even with Arisia the overall cost for an out-of-towner is likely to come to $100 + food... but that could still be very little. The only one of these cons that's even remotely similar in price is the PMM retreat... but because they put a cap on attendance, not very many are going to be able to take advantage of that opportunity. Plus I'm not sure that it has workshops, which Arisia very much does.

Maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges, but I don't see, really, why a poly conference couldn't be run that way. I'd like to see it more accessible...

Comments

[nathanjw]

Event space is expensive. The food is usually part of the deal, in that the hotel gives the group a rate for the event space, and cuts the rate to something "sensible" if the event also buys catering services. At the homebrewers' convention I attend, it's about $200 for a 3-day event, including 1 meal and a bunch of snack-like services, and not including lodging. The organizers told us that the pretzels they put out as snacks cost $20 per unit (~1 gallon bucket?) from the hotel caterer.

Generally speaking, I think it's true that you need to be well-off to attend conferences of any kind. This is a particular sore spot with events around poverty and social issues, and they often try to have scholarships and the like. Heck, just being able to get the time off to go to an event is a pretty well-off luxury, at least here in the *&&*^*&^&*^ no-vacation USA.

Also, one can (abstractly) stay with people and share hotel rooms in cities other than Boston, so the Arisia comparison is less about the con and more about one's own social nexus.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

No, in the Arisia comparison I was assuming that the attendee was splitting a hotel room four ways, which comes to about $50 for the two nights. Add the con cost, and that's $100, then there's food (your choice how much you spend on it) and transportation (depends entirely on where you happen to live). So it IS a fair comparison in that respect.

[lrc.livejournal.com]

Do some research on "lindy exchanges", http://lindyexchange.com http://bluesexchange.com

the way that they work is that the people who live in the host city provide crash space for people travelling in from out of town. Not only does that make it a lot cheaper, but it's a great way to meet people.

[sol3.livejournal.com]

I think it has something to do with scale. Arisia has a host of useful information posted on their finances - it took some wandering around (because i got curious :), but I found out that their budget assumes 1400 attendees at $31/head. $43k is a lot of money to play with. They also sell advertising in the program - which probably brings in at least another couple thousand dollars.

(east coast loving more is being hosted at a retreat center, which implies that lodging at the retreat center is part of the cost of the event)

I'd be curious what kind of pricing a poly con that attracted 1000+ people would end up having.

[kallisti.livejournal.com]

Most groups don't know all of the ins and outs of running a conference. Most SF community con runners, do...

Now in the past 30 years (eek! I'm giving away my age!)I have b een a member of the convention committee (concom) for 5 different SF conferences, one in two in Ottawa, and one each in Montreal, Toronto and Charlotte, NC...and using the basic template they all used, anyone can run a convention for 20 to 2,000 people, and keep the admission under $50 each. And all of them ran at least two tracks of programming, had a dance, and an hospitality suite open to the members of the conference. That includes flying in guests, giving them free accomondations, and feeding them.

The big difference is that too many people outside of SF fandom run conferences to make money, but those in the community do so aiming to break even or make a modest profit.

ttyl

[90pointmetaphor.livejournal.com]

A lot of that's probably hotel charges. I had to find a hotel for 4 days of meetings with work a couple months ago and some of the costs astounded me - $5/person to bring coffee up to the meeting room wasn't uncommon.

[nathanjw]

So it's down to the question of reg cost? Why is Arisia a $50 event, and PolyLiving $155? I'm going to guess "scale" - Arisia is a pretty popular and, in my experience, densely-packed event. They also have history, such that they can cut a multi-year deal, or at least the hotel expects them to be back. "Season" would be my next guess, but February in Philly is only marginally less terrible than January in Boston.

(also, PolyLiving refers to a "CuddleParty®". I really hoped that that ® bit is a joke, but it looks like I'm wrong)

[inki.livejournal.com]

Yah, CuddleParties are trademarked. Of course, that's resulted in a rash of "Snuggle Parties".

[kallisti.livejournal.com]

It has nothing to do with scale or size.

Arisia doesn't cut any multi-year deal...in fact, sometimes it is hard to get the hotel to agree to booking a weekend a year in advance...and you don't get any discounts!

Many times, larger events like Dragoncon, or the old Boskone jacked up their prices to try and discourage people from attending.

As I said, SF con runners *know* how to do things. Like, to pick up on a comment above...you *never* have the hotel supply coffee to an even...first of all, usually the coffee sucks, next, they usually charge by the pot, and even if only one cup comes out of a pot, you have to pay for the whole pot. And then replace the pot every hour...and don't tell you they do...so making coffee available for an early evening meeting can easily cost you a couple of hundred dollars!

Using the SF model, it would be very easy, with say $500-1000 start up money to run a conference for any of the various subcultures (pagan, poly, SF, anime, etc) with an attendance of 50-2,000 and keep the membership rate under $50. I don't know if you can do that anymore with Media conventions, as their guests tend to get paid to attend, but then again, many don't have hospitality suites and have large dealers rooms which bring in income. You might be able to do it with no big-name guests(ie ones who charge $10,000+ to attend).

ttyl

[inki.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you. I've never made a pure poly conference (though I did go to Building Bridges, a poly-focused mixed conference) because the price is just too outrageous. Each year I think, "gosh maybe I should go to Loving More this year" and then I see the price tag and reconsider. Most of the conference would be review for me now, and so shelling out $400 seems like a waste of money.

We really need cheap hotel-based poly conferences, or perhaps "conferences" done anarchist style (like LadyFest), where events are spread out through an area in community spaces, and most sessions are free, and people crash with folks they know instead of paying for lodging.