We used to pay $150 or so to attend NANOG conferences. Why are we charged $300 now? Where is our $150,000+ going?
Inflation?
That's certainly part of it.
Are we paying for the salaries and RIPE attendance of MERIT employees, and to what tune?
The fees cover salaries or parts of salaries for Merit people supporting the meetings and list. Plus we help defray expenses for non-Merit volunteers and the occasional speaker.
Conference space is free or greatly subsidized in return for room blocks. Connectivity, terminal rooms (who uses those anyway?), operational support, and hardware are all no-cost items to MERIT.
It's true that the hotel gives us some free stuff in exchange for booking a certain number of rooms, but our costs aren't zero - Merit covers food, A/V, and other expenses.
Continental breakfast costs $8k to sponsor. Morning or afternoon break costs $6k. Lunch or dinner, $18k. Beer and Gear is $6k per vendor, and has been booked solid for the last ten NANOG conferences. That's a lot of money right there.
Depends on how many sponsors we get, and we still have breakfast and break openings for Toronto :)
So what are we actually paying for, the t-shirts? Are
Yes.
we subsidizing other MERIT money losers?
With IT and engineering budgets shrinking, and unemployment on the rise, should MERIT be obligated to share with us a more detailed financial accounting, or is this none of our business?
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