MODX Conference 2014, looking for some feedback

Hi folks. I was looking for some feedback on a conference I'm working at for september 2014. This will be in the Netherlands, but I'd love all your feedback even if you're not within the vicinity.

Basically the idea is that it will be an all inclusive 2 day+ conference, that I'd like to call a "MODX Weekend" for now. Buy a ticket, and everything from friday night until sunday night or monday morning is included in that ticket, including your hotel room (on-site), food and drinks throughout the stay, side-activities, video footage etc.

Now my problem is that the pricing needs to be both fair to the attendees but it also needs to cover the costs. These costs are quite high considering everything that is included with it. As a result, the ticket price is fairly high too. There's not much that can be done about that, other than getting sponsors to chip in and to bring the price down. The problem is that sponsors aren't typically excited to sign off on any sponsoring amount early on. I wasn't part of the organising nor sponsor committee for MODXpo 2013, but I do noticed that most of the sponsors (that made the event *possible*) did not get added to the sponsor page until the last 1-2 months.

But if I want to give attendees lower prices thanks to sponsors, I need to know how much they're willing to chip in way before that. And to get sponsors to chip in, I need some numbers.

So I had an idea and I want your thoughts.

Right now I have a fairly good idea of the costs and the ticket pricing I need to cover that. With some contingency built in, the max ticket price I'm looking at is about €700. If I can get sponsors to chip in say €150 per attendee, I could get away charging €550 which would make the event a lot more accessible and affordable, which would be awesome. But if I wont know sponsors are willing to chip in €150 I need to charge €700 to cover the costs. Argh, it's a loop!

My idea was to start accepting reservations early so I can collect some data to give to sponsors. To make sure people are serious about attending and they're not just taking up seats (there's a limited quantity of attendees that would fit comfortably in the venue), I would charge them €50 at the time of reservation.

Then, a few months down the road, I would be able of telling sponsors there will be at least X attendees, which is a great metric for getting sponsoring signed off. At that point, I would know the level of sponsoring and could open up the actual ticket sales to people that made a reservation at whatever the final price ends up to be thanks to sponsoring. The €50 they paid earlier to reserve their seat would be deducted from the amount they need to pay for a ticket.

Is that just me being overly crazy, or is it actually something that you as possible attendee would consider useful/good/fair? [ed. note: markh last edited this post 10 years, 6 months ago.]

Hi Mark

Sounds like a good idea some people may want the option of finding their own accommodation or perhaps they live near by so have you thought about two types of tickets with and without accommodation?

I've quite often easily paid £700 just for a conference pass and then my own accommodation separate I would say though at a higher price the line of speakers would need to be listed up front as I personally look at that to decide if the conference is a worthwhile investment.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Aaron. There will be different types of tickets (users will be able of picking exactly what they want included, varying from pick-up, accommodation and specific days they want to attend so they can balance cost vs value), but in this simplified example the pricing is for the full package including accommodation.

I've also paid $700 for just a conference before and another $500 for the recommended hotel, but I know many people simply don't have that kind of money available for a few days out. Sponsors can help bring it closer within reach but there's this darn loop between ticket pricing and getting sponsors to pay for the costs...

The schedule will get more specific over time with speakers and session abstracts of course, but when the site goes live there should already be enough information available about that to judge the conference value.

I think the cost is good as most conferences goes for around that anyway and some conferences are just 1 day conferences, It would be good if the conference could include some workshops over the two day, I think this will start to feel like more value for money at that point for everyone. I think just general talks are good but its normally a better response when you have workshops where folks can feel like they left with something of value.

I would love to see some more design driven talks at MODX conferences (not that I have been to any MODX conference before), because the conference should target the larger audience and not just folks already capable of using MODX. In other words I would love to see some outside participation, not just MODXers.

The post has only been up for 2 hours of course, but so far people here and a couple of people on Skype don't seem to think it is necessary to lower the prices through this weird sponsoring scheme I suggested... as long as the value (content) is right, and the flexibility to get tickets without accommodation etc is there.

Sponsoring could also be used for adding more awesomeness to the event, instead of bringing ticket costs down. So maybe that's the best way to approach it then. Would definitely be less administrative work and juggling numbers. Could of course encourage sponsors to get some tickets to raffle to make it possible for those with smaller budgets to attend.

To be continued (but more feedback is welcome).

I'm good for two workshops; I'd like to do an updated version of the "Build a complete website in xx minutes", and then maybe something about customizing the Dashboard using some interesting diagnostic utility extras? Of course, by then 2.3 should be out, so something more interesting may come up. I'm certainly open to suggestions.

I'll definitely be in touch with you in a couple of weeks about that Susan You're high on my list of speakers.

Thoughts:
First thought - Woo Hoo Mark is making a MODX conference!

Pricing - I agree with the notion of having conference ticket prices separate from accommodation costs -- some people may be traveling with a spouse or friend and/or tacking on a vacation afterwards (I know that's where my brain is headed right now.)

I think it would be hard to get a registration fee up front without having most of the details -- including price -- already hammered out. I probably wouldn't commit to a conference without knowing what my bottom line will be.

As an example, I just paid about $400 to attend a really high-quality 2-day conference here, Artifact East in Providence. I feel that price is a bargain. Most conferences here in the US that I would be interested in attending are more like $400-$500 per DAY. I would not pay much more than that. The full-day workshop following Artifact conference was $500 (I didn't attend). I understand it was a higher price because attendance was limited for the workshop so that people could really participate and get individualized attention from the workshop leader. Seems worth it, but beyond my budget.

Maybe you could figure on a certain amount of sponsorship revenue, using a very low estimation, and then whatever you get beyond that use for the after parties and pampering your speakers. And swag for attendees. Or sock it away for the next year so you don't have to go through this again?

Content - I'd love to have some hands on workshops where we work through things like snippet creation and the stuff Susan mentions above.

Calendar - I have heard the 2014 MODXpo will be in the US of A. If that is so I will pretty much definitely be going... So, it might be hard for US residents to attend both, but maybe you're not really counting on Yanks traveling to your conference? If you do want us - please make sure your dates aren't too close to the MODXpo dates. (I don't know when it is or if a date is even set.)

Thanks Lucy Glad the mere thought of me organising an event makes you happy, hehe.

The splitting up accommodation definitely seems like a theme. While it was part of the plan to offer custom tickets that would let you (quite literally) tick boxes of what you wanted included and what not, it may be good to scrap that and simply split up conference and accommodation. I do think that for the all inclusive concept to "work" as I envision it (more information about that will be available soon), it needs the on-site accommodation. With everyone in the same place I can easily arrange stuff like breakfast (perhaps throwing in something like a breakfast keynote) and some nice surprise touches I'm planning..

The venue is also really remote (it's beautiful in the middle of a forest with everything you'd need right there) so off-site locations would mean people need to arrange transport and what not (I think there's a small bus that passes by every hour). Initially I thought that splitting up accommodation would be an option for people that live locally that want to save on conference costs and instead just drive to/from the venue. Sharing rooms with a spouse or friend is of course not a problem with the on-site hotel.

As for a MODXpo in the USA, I've also heard the rumours, but I have no idea on dates for that though I'd love to know as I'm hoping to attend that one myself too. I do have a date for the MODX Weekend in mind for September, but need to confirm that with the venue. More news about that in the coming weeks; I've been waiting for MODXpo to finish before getting too deep into organising a different conference

I'm not anticipating a lot of US attendees but of course you are more than welcome!

What is this modmore thing anyways?