Perl Conferences

Frozen Perl will be a one-day workshop at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on Saturday, February 16, 2008. It is modeled on last year's Pittsburgh Perl Workshop, which was in turn modeled on the London Workshop and other European events. We (at a very rough guess) are expecting anywhere from 60-150 people. The early bird registration rate will be $10 for students, and $20 for everyone else. This will double approximately 5 weeks before the workshop.

The workshop is being organized by the Minneapolis Perl Mongers. We are working with the bioinformatics student group as a co-sponsor of the workshop. This group is a registered student group at the university, which allows us to get a great discount on the venue (about 50%). I've told the bioinformatics group that we (MPM, hopefully TPF) will be taking care of the money side of things.

We're also working with brian d foy of Stonehenge Consulting to offer a one-day Intro to Perl class on Friday, February 15. The payment for this will likely be handled separately from the conference, per brian's preference. We are trying to secure a classroom to host this class for free, through our connection with the bioinformatics group. If we can do this, brian has agreed to allow students to attend for an extremely low fee ($10). The money raised raised from this class will go entirely to Stonehenge. Our costs will be limited to some advertising.

We have already reserved the McNamara Alumni Center as our venue (https://www.alumnicenter.umn.edu/). The total cost for this venue, including A/V (but not catering) is $1,250. Our current reservation is from 8am-6pm, and we might be able to save a small amount of money by finishing by 5:30pm.

We are also planning a hackathon for the Sunday after the workshop. This will most likely be at the Radisson Hotel on the UMN campus. The cost for renting a room for the entire day is $250, and this may be reduced if we also book a block of rooms at a group rate for the workshop. We have not yet committed to the hackathon room or a block of rooms.

The securing of a group rate is one of our biggest open items. The Radisson would require us to commit to a block of rooms, and to pay for them ourself if they are not used. The Radisson is by far the most convenient hotel, as it is connected to the workshop venue by an underground tunnel, and it's where we plan to hold the hackathon.

We're exploring alternate hotels, but I would like to discuss this particular problem further with the TPF.

The biggest remaining expense is catering, which we will commit to based solely on the amount of sponsorship we receive. At the very least, we hope to provide a morning and afternoon beverage service. If we have additional funding, we hope to provide a catered lunch as well as morning and afternoon snacks.

We expect to be able to cover our venue costs entirely from registration fees. Given 65 non-students at $20 and 15 students at $10 each that would be $1,450, enough to pay for the venue.

So far we have already secured $1,500 in sponsorship commitments, and at least two other sponsors have said they will sponsor us at a level yet to be determined. I expect us to be able to raise at least $3,000 in sponsorship, which should allow us to provide some additional catering, as mentioned above.

Expenses

Listed in order in which they will receive funding:

• Venue: $1,250 - this is the only required item
• Advertising: $100 (est)
• Morning beverages: $200 (est)
• Afternoon beverages: $200 (est)
• Lunch: $1,000 (est)
• Breakfast: $600 (est, plus the cost of beverages)
• Afternoon snack: $600 (est, plus the cost of beverages)
• Hackathon room: $250
• T-shirts: $480 ($6/shirt * 80 attendees)

Advertising costs are primarily for things like printing flyers. $100 may be a gross overestimate, but it gives us some wiggle room.

Obviously, the catering costs will vary based on the number of attendees, and there is some flexibility based on what exact food we purchase. The numbers above are all based on a figure of 80 attendees.

There are also some additional expenses that are flexible, in that they can be funded at various levels. These include buying some drinks and/or food at a Saturday night social event, food and beverages for the Hackathon, drinks and/or food for a Friday night speaker & organizer's dinner.

These are all way down on the funding priority list, and will only get funding if we have money "left over".

Income

• Registration fees: $1,450 (65 non-students, 15 students, all early bird)
• Sponsorship: $Everything else

As you can see from our budget, the event is very conservative financially, since we could cover costs with no sponsorship, and we already have a commitment of $1,500, putting else well into the black before we've even started.