[ubuntu-us-ut] Utah Open Source Conference thoughts

[Bryan Petty]

On 9/10/07, Charles Curley <charlescurley at charlescurley.com> wrote:
> Hmmm, this isn't DefCon, so it may not be useful to compare the two.

It is very similar in regards to the organization of various tracks,
events, and competitions. It's just on a different subject matter.
Like I said, the attendance numbers are very different, but from my
vantage point, the finer details don't even come close to a match in
comparison, even when you factor in attendance.

> Still, if $40 would make or break your attendance, perhaps in future
> we can have a scholarship program.

I can afford $40, and would have gone had I known it was going to be
this much. But this comes back to the confusion about prices that I
already mentioned. I was aware of group rates, but I was under the
impression that even with the discounts, registration was still >
$100.

$100+ for UTOSC just doesn't even compare to what you get for $100 at
DefCon (which doesn't require a discount).

On a separate subject though, since you brought up scholarships, it's
probably not a bad idea to give out "student rates" and bring in
students in the CS departments of the various local universities. I
don't fall under this category myself, but it would be a good
opportunity to pull students into open source much like Google's
Summer of Code program.

On 9/10/07, Nathan wrote:
> Bryan, The price was $250 ($200 for early) for those who didn't have a
> discount (click on register to see price).  The discounted price was
> $40, which is a steal of a deal for a conference.  Defcon was $100.
> Defcon has vendors which almost counts as sponsors.  They pay on average
> of $400 for a table.

There is no "register" link, and wasn't one that I saw when I first
sent my email. I wouldn't expect there to be a "register" page now
that it's over either, but I would expect there to be a page with
information about the price.

DefCon also pays every (lesser known) speaker $100, of which, there
was close to 200. Vendor tables don't even cover half of that. The
more widely known speakers are offered much more than this as well in
negotiating for presentations. I know this because not only have I
given a presentation at DefCon, but I've also been a Goon since DefCon
12 (for 4 years now).

Regards,
Bryan Petty