Subject: One-day pass

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 09:18:11 -0500

Some time ago, Fred Baker reported on revenue shortfalls from the IETF
meetings, noting that we have a significant number of participants who do
not pay.  In my experience, one class of such "interlopers" are people who
come for one session only and feel that they should not have to pay for the
entire week.  (For those who take the position that the total amount is not
painful enough to worry about, I commend you to the perspective of those
who pay their own way.)

So, I would like to suggest that we permit a one-day pass, for
approximately one-third of the total fee.  For example, a one-day pass to
Orlando would be, perhaps, US$ 100.00.  

Personally, I am quite sympathetic to current, one-session interlopers, but
would not be if we had day passes.

d/

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker                                       Tel: +60 (19) 3299 445
<mailto:[email-masked]>             Post Office Box 296, U.P.M.
                                         Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA
Brandenburg Consulting                                          
<http://www.brandenburg.com>                       Tel: +1 (408) 246 8253
Fax: +1(408)273 6464              675 Spruce Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

---

From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 12:58:07 -0800

> would not be if we had day passes.

Dave's idea is a good one.  It seems to me it has been suggested 
before as well.  We could do this for the investment in different 
colored stock for full-week and 1-day badges.   Fred, could this be 
given more consideration?

john noerenberg
[email-masked]
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  All actions are wrought by the qualities of nature only.
  The self, deluded by egoism, thinketh, "I am the doer."
  -- Bhagavad Gita
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: "John W. Noerenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 12:58:07 -0800

john noerenberg
[email-masked]

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:54:40 -0500

Sounds good to me.

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:54:40 -0500

Sounds good to me.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 00:44:31 -0500

> So, I would like to suggest that we permit a one-day pass,

This and other issues come up so often, that I'm starting to think that 
the IETF list needs an FAQ.  (why is our community memory so short?)

Meeting costs are not even close to linear in the amount of time
we spend at meetings.    We need the same number of meeting rooms,
at approximately the same sizes, even if some people don't show up 
all week.  The cost of the cokes and cookies and badges - that is 
the cost per individual - isn't that big a percentage of the 
whole cost of holding the meeting.

Worse, if enough people just show up for one day, then the hotel
doesn't sell as many rooms as the contract requires, and IETF ends 
up paying more for the meeting space.

And we already have too many groups working at cross purposes
because of a lack of cross-pollenation...

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 00:44:31 -0500

Keith

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 05:21:24 -0500

>we spend at meetings.    We need the same number of meeting rooms,

The non-linearity is the reason for suggesting a one-third price for a
one-fifth consumption.

>whole cost of holding the meeting.

Pricing can be done on a strictly cost-basis or a strictly market-basis
(how high a price will the market tolerate?) or a mix.  We have a current
revenue short-fall and I'm suggesting a middle-ground for getting some
non-payers to cough up some money.  

>up paying more for the meeting space.

That's only a problem if we start having a more substantial proportion of
one-day attendees.  I'm doubting that will happen, but if it does, we are
likely to get MUCH higher revenues, given that the one-day attendees pay
almost twice as much per day as full-week registrants.  This would more
than cover the costs of any loss from having fewer hotel-nights.

>because of a lack of cross-pollenation...

The way to solve that is by market appeal -- namely, getting them to WANT
to attend other meetings -- not by coercive pricing that serves to exclude
the narrow-focus participant.

There are enough forces that already encourage multi-day attendance so that
I'm frankly not worried about the one-day pass significantly distorting our
stats.  However if we find that it DOES have a effect, we can adjust
accordingly.

d/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 05:21:24 -0500

d/

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:59:43 -0500

Keith, I don't believe that was the original poster's intent.  If it is
the
case that people are coming for just one or two days, and are sneaking
into
meetings, the IETF could attempt to make some money off it.  You assume
that if the IETF sold one-day passes we would lose money because a large
percentage of the paying attendees would only pay for one or two days. 
Did
you actually do a survey?

...Scott

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:59:43 -0500

...Scott

---

From: "David W. Morris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 17:53:28 -0800 (PST)

While I think the one-day pass is nice as a concept, I would note as
someone who pays his own way that the IETF meeting cost is such a small
fraction of the total cost that I just don't find it rational to expect
a significant improvement in the rate of payment by making the cost
smaller.  On the average, figure
    1.  IETF at about $400
    2.  Airfare at at least $450 (average is probably higher)
    3.  Hotel and meals and local transporation, at least 200/day
    4.  And for many who pay their own way, lost consulting revenue
        at least $400/day to $1K or more.
Cost to my business bottom line is at least $4000 to attend the full
week. The IETF meeting fee works out to 10% or less.  When the 'show' is
local, I'm so happy to skip 2 and 3 and recover part of 4 during otherwise
idle time that $400 is still not an issue.

It would help me to have a pretty firm agenda, much earlier. If not the
exact times, at least the days.  For my interests and related areas,
grouping has been fairly good but I end up with a airfare penalty to
go home early, etc.

But I think the bottom line is that slough offs will slough offs. The
only way to fix the problem is restrict access to the meeting area 
for folks without badges. This is probably not cost effective considering
the general hotel meeting room layouts.

Dave Morris 

On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, Dave Crocker wrote:

> -
> This message was passed through [email-masked], which
> is a sublist of [email-masked]. Not all messages are passed.
> Decisions on what to pass are made solely by Harald Alvestrand.
>

---

From: "David W. Morris" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 17:53:28 -0800 (PST)

Dave Morris

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 02:03:02 -0500

> The non-linearity is the reason for suggesting a one-third price for a

I said "not even close to linear".  

> non-payers to cough up some money.  

I believe that the effect of your suggestion would be to further 
decrease revenue, and also to discourage cross-area and cross-group 
participation.  I don't think we're likely to get many more non-payers 
to cough up funds.  The percentage of people who can afford to come
to the meeting and really cannot afford to pay the meeting fee is
surely very small, which implies that most of the people who aren't 
paying are simply being dishonest.  Lowering the one-day cost of
attendance might allow the occasional student or other low-income 
participant to pay - and I'm certainly sympathetic to such cases -
but this is the exception rather than the rule (and exceptions can 
already be made for students) Dishonest people will not become more 
honest simply because we give them the opportunity to not cheat as much.

> than cover the costs of any loss from having fewer hotel-nights.

This is not consistent with my understanding of how these hotel
contracts work.  If the sale of hotel rooms drops below a certain
level, the cost of the rooms increases dramatically.  

You're trying to apply a linear model to a highly non-linear system.
It doesn't work.

> the narrow-focus participant.

The current pricing isn't coercive - it's merely reflective of the cost
of running the IETF (not just the conferences).  Why should narrow-focus
participants (who, if they participate in large numbers, arguably do harm 
to IETF) pay less of the cost of running IETF than those who particpate 
broadly?

> stats.  However if we find that it DOES have a effect, we can adjust

Who is going to insure IETF against the risk that your strategy fails?

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 02:03:02 -0500

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 02:16:45 -0500

> You assume that if the IETF sold one-day passes we would lose money 
> because a large percentage of the paying attendees would only pay for 
> one or two days. Did you actually do a survey?

No, I didn't do a survey.  I firmly believe that if we were going to consider
any change in the schedule of meeting fees, or more generally in how the 
secretariat recovers its costs, we should first do careful research to 
get at least some idea about what the effect would be. 

I assume that many paying attendees would pay for just one day
if they could do so, because I've had many people tell me that they
dropped in on various WG meetings "because they had paid for
the whole week anyway".  I think this is a good thing because
it lessens the tendency for groups to work at cross purposes.

Some people complain at having to pay for the whole week, but 
those people probably don't realize that "meeting fees" pay
for a lot more than just the meetings.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 02:16:45 -0500

Keith