Dear John;
On Aug 19, 2009, at 8:56 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
Dear Marshall,
--On Wednesday, August 19, 2009 17:53 -0400 Marshall Eubanks
<tme(_at_)americafree(_dot_)tv> wrote:
Along those lines, I strongly think that any day pass
payments should be fully applicable to a
full registration, if people decide they want to stay for the
whole meeting. We want to encourage that.
Marshall, I generally agree, but your suggestions raise other
issues that need sorting out. I would have hoped that they
would have been sorted out before the original announcement...
perhaps they have been and the announcement is just
incomplete.
First, this is an experiment. Suggestions are certainly
welcomed.
No problem with that.
For example, we have a rather steep late registration fee and
a nasty policy if one cancels less than a week before the
meeting. I presume there are good reasons for both (other
...
With the automating of the system, it might be reasonable to
change or even remove the cancelation policy (as is
done already for people with visa issues) but I think that
this needs a little thought and
should be considered separately.
Absolutely (both to "needs thought" and "separately"). I think
these questions and changes/experiments suggest each other, but
that doesn't turn them into the same question.
However, suppose a "day pass" costs only $200. I presume, but
Alexa's note didn't say, that number is independent of
whether I register for one a few weeks in advance or at the
meeting.
The current planning is that the day pass fee will be fixed,
with no early bird benefit and no late fees.
Ok. See below.
I am not quite sure I understand why you think there is a
difference here. If I get you, either way, you would wind up
paying the full walk up fee, just once in a lump sum and the
other way in two stages. It's not like you have to reserve
early to be sure we don't run out of tickets - we can always
print more !
Maybe you have answered the question, but let me explain it.
Your "day pass payments should be fully applicable to a full
registration" seems reasonable to me. I think we should
encourage such conversions because it would give someone more of
the IETF experience and because we could always use the revenue.
However, if the day pass is fully applicable to a full
registration including the on-site registration penalty (whether
that should be described that way or as the absence of an early
registration discount is just semantics at one level, but it
clearly affects the difference in the way we are thinking about
this), then that late registration penalty will wipe out most of
the cost of the day pass.
Put differently and, again, it depends a bit on how you look at
this, if I submit and pay for my day pass two or three weeks
ahead of IETF, when I would have gotten the early registration
discount for the full registration, then letting me get to IETF
and convert the day pass to a full registration after
experiencing a day of the meeting isn't what I would consider
fully-convertible, it is, if my memory that the late
registration penalty is $150, a $50 discount off of what I would
have paid for the full registration had I gotten it earlier.
Ah, OK, I see your point now. Are you saying that you think that we
should give a little discount
to people who buy early and convert ? To me, this seems like over-
engineering the
situation. If we had a "early day fee" of, say $ 150, would it really
influence very many people ?
You could look at it another way. Suppose you are local to a meeting.
You could walk-up on Monday,
and try it out. If it seems like it is worthwhile you're not out
anything, as you would have had to
pay the full walk up fee without the experiment. If it seems like its
not relevant to
you, you're out 1 day and $ 200, which seems pretty affordable to me.
My assumption going into this was that most of the day passes would go
to people who one way or another are walk-ups. We shall see.
Let's look at IETF-73 & 72 :
http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/IETF73_Meeting_Statement.pdf
http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/IETF72_Meeting_Statement.pdf
IETF 73 Minneapolis, MN
Early @ $635 780 495,300
Regular @ $785 149 116,965
Student @ $150 37 5,550
Comps @ $0 31 0
Cancellation Fee @ $63.50 5 318
IETF 72 Dublin
Early @ $635 994 631,190
Regular @ $785 117 91,845
Student @ $150 61 9,150
Comps @ $0 35 0
Cancellation Fee @ $ 63.50 13 826
My opinion is, if we have a number of "Day-trippers" equal to the
number of "Regulars", we'll be doing well, and that's about 120
people. I think that by tweaking this we are talking about maybe
increasing or decreasing that by order 10%, or 10 people or so, which
seems "in the noise" to me.
My personal feeling is, let's run the experiment at a fixed fee and
then we can ask in the survey if a moderately lower advance day fee
would have made a difference.
Given that the full registration is more than three times that
$200 day fee these days (even without the late registration
penalty), it would be more economic for me to buy three day
passes rather than convert. With the penalty, it would be more
economic at four. I think that encourages behavior we don't
want to encourage... unless you prevent someone who is getting
one day pass from getting more to the same IETF meeting (which,
in our community, is going to give you an interesting
authorization problem).
Either way, the revenue to the IETF would be the same, so I
don't see a risk (to the IETF) here. Of course, if the
Secretariat is overwhelmed with additional work, that would
have to be reconsidered.
If people start buying day passes, especially a couple or three
day passes, instead of registering for the whole meeting, it
definitely carries a "total registration income" financial risk.
This is positive from a financial standpoint only if those who
buy day passes would otherwise not have attended at all (or
would have snuck in). Please note that, I'm in favor of this
experiment, I'm just curious about how many of the scenarios
have actually been examined.
I was responding specifically to your scenario in my statement, not to
the general case.
Clearly, in the general case, there is some risk.
I am curious --but just curious-- whether buying a day pass
would entitle someone to come to the opening reception or to
register for the social. Especially given the experience in
Sweden, I would hope that decisions will be made about those
sorts of issues before registration is opened. I have no idea
what the right decision should be but suggest that having a
decision is important.
These are generally sponsored, and that is thus the sponsor's decision.
If it were up to me, and if the event was limited in attendance, then
I think they should be allowed to be on a wait list
after all of the regular registrants (and sponsors). If it doesn't
"sell out" otherwise, why
not let them in ? If it does, the full registrants should get priority.
Of course, none of this stops the usual trading of tickets, which is
another way to attend such things.
In large part, this is a response to the tough economic times
we find ourselves in. There have
been complaints about the overall cost of attending the
meetings, and some particular circumstances pertaining to
Japan, so an experiment seemed in order. I hope that we find
it increases the total attendance and also income; we shall
see.
Without knowing the "particular circumstances pertaining to
Japan" (unless they are the issue Ole mentioned),
They were. That's what I was told. I do not know for myself, but we
shall see.
my assumption
is that for most people, or most people who would outside east
Asia, the airfares will be enough larger than the registration
fee to make this kind of tuning fairly marginal. Of course, a
longer stay in Japan is more expensive than a shorter one, more
or less proportionate to the number of days. But I don't
imagine that very many people are going to fly to Hiroshima for
a one-day meeting.
Agreed. But you might get some people who will go to Japan and
have other business there, and so would come fewer days.
Again, this is an experiment. I don't know if it will be positive or
negative, but
at the least we should learn something useful from it.
Marshall
As far as people who are closer are concerned, I don't see the
Japanese situation as being that unusual, even with Ole's
explanation. If there is a meeting that is fairly nearby, I
can't imagine many companies releasing employees who are not
directly involved to go to it (with or without a fairly high
registration fee) for a whole week. A day, maybe, but a week is
a big deal. I don't know how to separate it from other
fluctuations in meeting attendance, but I think the migration to
five full days is likely to cost us some attendees who can be
away from their desks for four days but for whom being away "a
whole week" is going to be a major psychological barrier.
It will be an interesting experiment.
As this is an experiment, comments and suggestions are
especially welcomed.
Ole's recent comments are germane here and I fully agree with
them.
And they are the sort of explanation about why decisions were
made and how they are being thought about that I believe it
would be very helpful if the community heard proactively and
from the IAOC, rather than getting a note with no background
from the Secretariat and then having to fill in the details via
questions to the list.
All of the above is just my opinion. I am specifically not
speaking for the IAOC or other members.
Much appreciated.
john
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