DebConf10/Registration

Note: this page is old, it was made by people in 2009. However, the people who made that page weren't the ones who offered to handle registration, so it didn't exactly happen that way. The 2010 page made by the 2010 people is at DebConf10/ReconfirmationProcess.

DebConf10 has lot of uncertainty in terms of the number of people who will sign up for sponsorship. We expect that we will be able to sponsor as many people as past years, however are unsure of the total number of requesters. There is a possibility of a massive number of

As such, we plan on having a rolling sponsorship system, where we will add in more sponsored slots as they become financially feasible.

The key points are:

• Begin with 200 sponsored spots. We can easily fundraise for this number.
• We keep a queue of the order people sign up with sponsorship requests.
• As we become more sure of the budgetary and capacity situations, we expand the number of sponsorships. We follow the order people requested sponsorship, using the queue. We can do this at any time-- to be decided later.. We'd probably re-evaluate once a month, at the global team meetings.
• Since we are starting so early, we still let people know their sponsorship status sooner than most past conferences.
• Do we do food sponsorship separate from accommodation sponsorship? Just because you have "food sponsorship" doesn't mean that you have to accept it. That makes it slightly more confusing, but not impossibly so. (note: mrbeige thinks we should look at a simpler way to do this, or at least explaine/document better to prevent confusion)
• We would encourage people to sign up for the Sponsored category at first, and not to select a paid category just for the benefit of other attendees. We don't want people to feel that they should have to pay for DebConf just by peer pressure.
• Optionally, if we have run out of sponsored space, we can announce such and see if people will switch to a contributing category. However, this negates the expected freeness of DebConf since it creates an desire that attendees contribute something. It may be best to leave this part out completely.
• Expected total sponsirship is in the 300 to 400 person range.
• We don't cap total number of Professional registrations. We aren't worried about running out of room. Professional fees pay for all costs incurred, so there is no reason to cap their total number. They get housing with us, food, and all the other benefits sponsored people get.
• People don't lose their spot in the queue if they switch from Sponsored to Professional/Corporate categories. FIXME we may want to make this even more flexible.

• January 1: Open Registration. 200 Sponsored spots become available.
• April 15th. Sponsored registration closes.

Cap total registrations?

There has been some discussion about if we want to cap the total number of registrations. This is a valid concern, but that should be brought up separate from the proposals above. The modification would be a simple "cap total Sponsored+Professional" registrations", with a queue system in case people drop out.

This should be discussed separately from the rolling sponsorship system above, because otherwise arguments against capped total registration will become mixed with how to not burst our budget which might decay into flames about "New York can't sponsor enough people". The issues need to be separate.