starting to think ab
[2021-12-02 11:21:52 AM] : starting to think about the details of my conference launch including especially pricing. how does this plan sound?
monday, january 10th: ticket sales open. price is $199
friday, january 14th: discount period ends, price goes up to $299
obviously the launch period will include emailing my list, sharing on twitter, etc.
does that sound like a reasonable plan? i’m slightly concerned that the price is too high…also slightly concerned it’s too low. i feel like it’s probably about right though.
1 Reply
[2021-12-02 11:35:28 AM] : how many days is the conference?
[2021-12-02 11:35:37 AM] : how much do you expct people to pay for a hotel?
[2021-12-02 11:36:34 AM] : (and flight)
[2021-12-02 11:36:35 AM] : do you expect people to get their job to pay?
[2021-12-02 11:37:35 AM] : you can do things like individual rate vs. corporate rate vs. student rate, too
[2021-12-02 11:37:48 AM] : (PyCon is $400/$700/$100)
[2021-12-02 11:38:10 AM] : two days. my existing hotel block is $305 total for 3 nights. flight, depends where they’re coming from. i was actually planning to have a higher “i’m not spending my own money” tier but i forgot to mention that
[2021-12-02 11:39:43 AM] : so maybe the non-discounted rates would be something like $299 and $499 for individual and corporate tickets, respectively
[2021-12-02 01:11:01 PM] : How do the prices line up with the financial goals for the conf?
[2021-12-02 01:15:20 PM] : hmm, idk how to express the financial goals for the conference other than “make as much money as reasonably possible”
[2021-12-02 01:16:15 PM] : with the constraint that i don’t want to set the ticket prices so high that attendance is out of reach for the average conference-goer
[2021-12-02 01:49:13 PM] : i think you're looking at this backwards.
[2021-12-02 01:50:26 PM] : how many tickets, at what price points, ensure that the event is a success? even if there isn't a maximum there is a natural minimum before you lose money.
[2021-12-02 01:53:32 PM] : and at those $199 and $299 price points, how many tickets do you need to sell of each to break even? to hit an initial target to make you feel good? to hit a stretch goal?
[2021-12-02 01:53:50 PM] : do those attendance numbers line up with:
• capacity
• reach
• experience you intend to create
[2021-12-02 01:54:17 PM] : otherwise...you're pulling numbers out of thin air based on feelings and you know how that goes :wink:
[2021-12-02 02:26:12 PM] : great questions
[2021-12-02 02:31:00 PM] : so the origin of this that i booked nonrefundable hotel meeting space (including a room block for 10 rooms) in order to hold a workshop, but then i realized i didn’t think i had the pull to sell 10 workshop tickets. so the absolute minimum is 10 attendees. that will cover my obligation for the room block. aside from that, i estimate my total costs (as in absolute necessary costs) to be $1000 for the meeting room + about $300 for hotel and maybe $500 for my plane ticket, so we’ll call it $2000 total. so if i were to sell 10 tickets at $200 each then that would cover the hotel block plus my absolute minimal expenses
[2021-12-02 02:32:19 PM] : i guess i left out the middle part of the story, where i decided, as crazy as it sounds, that it would be easier to put on a conference than a workshop
[2021-12-02 02:33:18 PM] : anyway, it’s kind of a chicken-egg situation. i don’t know whether i’m going to sell 10 tickets or 100 or 1000, and i won’t have any remote idea until tickets go on sale in early january
[2021-12-02 02:34:21 PM] : if i end up selling more than a small handful of tickets, then i feel obligated to provide catering and some certain other “conferencey” things like lanyards, etc. but i don’t want to commit myself to those expenses before i know for sure that i’m going to sell more than zero tickets
[2021-12-02 02:35:19 PM] : > to hit an initial target to make you feel good?
i think i would feel really good about 50 attendees. not even from a money perspective, just “50 people actually came to my event” perspective
[2021-12-02 02:38:01 PM] : > to hit a stretch goal?
if i were to sell 250 tickets at $200 then that would be extraordinary. at this point for me 50 * 200 = $10K is nice but not especially thrilling. 250 * $200 = $50K would be a whole different level. both because it would be gratifying for that many people to attend but also because that’s a lot of money (although i realize that more attendees translates to higher expenses of course)
[2021-12-02 03:06:04 PM] : i understand that you're feeling painted into a corner by being on the hook for the space, but I'd encourage you to (even just as a thought experiment) to try using the space as a constraint (e.g. how many people you can host and what kind of experience you can provide) rather than the goal of filling it.
have you thought about backwards planning the event, like it were a product? what problems would it solve? what's actually necessary, vs what you can drop (instead of copying "features of a conference").
[2021-12-02 03:50:00 PM] : you mean like what problems would it solve for attendees, right? as opposed to problems it would solve for me?
[2021-12-02 03:58:39 PM] : that leads me to ask myself: why do people go to conferences? and the answers i would give are to meet people and see people, to learn things, to gain access to opportunities, to feel like they’re part of a community, to have fun
[2021-12-02 04:23:21 PM] : i’m not really sure where else to go with that though. i was thinking it would be a pretty standard conference experience with speaker sessions, lunch, happy hour, etc.
[2021-12-02 04:24:03 PM] : although if there’s enough ticket sales i might do some crazy shit. maybe get a clown band or something
[2021-12-02 06:23:31 PM] : seems like conferences have very different feel, and probably need to be run very differently, if they're a different size
[2021-12-02 08:42:44 PM] : definitely
[2021-12-02 09:16:28 PM] : i think one of the most common problems a small conference solves is being local to the attendees, like it's so much easier if you don't have to travel
[2021-12-02 09:17:46 PM] : very true. so good job to me for picking a super remote and not very big city :joy: