First, I wanted to agree with what Pat said:
While generally IETF is helped by cross pollination and multi-day attendance
is a good thing to encourage, there are times when the work of a particular
group is helped by the attendance of some subject matter experts who are only
interested in the topic of that group and who would not be willing or able to
attend for the week. A day pass at around 1/2 the full week registration fee
does something for the one day attendee while still encouraging full
attendance.
That seems to be a reasonable compromise to me - though given the choice
between having a stable agenda more than a month before the meeting and a day
pass, I think the former would be more helpful for single subject attendees.
Secondly, the day pass rates are a combination of a number of partially
conflicting factors, including:
- the desire to help cross-pollination
- the desire to attract more participants (and more diverse participation)
- the desire to make attending easy for everyone
- costs: the combination of fixed costs (e.g., RFC Editor), fixed meeting costs
(e.g., site selection), and variable meeting costs (e.g., size of rooms)
- pricing: what attendees find as a reasonable fee and how it compares to their
other costs, such as travel; avoiding competing with the full week option
- setting up meetings only as a place to do work vs. as a part of funding a
bigger system (e.g., editor staff, tools development)
- …
Are we at the right spot? Maybe, maybe not. I personally think the current
settings are at least in the ballpark. 1/5 price for a day ticket would
certainly be a bad choice, IMO. Something between 2/5 to 3/5 is probably the
right area, and I think we are there. And don't forget that we also have
Fellows/Guest programs...
I also tend to agree with Pat that the practical matters are more relevant than
whether the day pass costs 100$ more or less. I'd rather work on those matters
than the price.
Jari