We used to pay $150 or so to attend NANOG conferences. Why are we charged $300 now? Where is our $150,000+ going? Inflation? Are we paying for the salaries and RIPE attendance of MERIT employees, and to what tune? 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. 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. So what are we actually paying for, the t-shirts? Are 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? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/
We used to pay $150 or so to attend NANOG conferences. Why are we charged $300 now? Where is our $150,000+ going?
To be perfectly honest, I'm more than happy with the cost of the NANOG conference. I get probably 2 or 3 invitations to "conferences" every week through the post, and they're all the equivalent of $2000 upwards for a 1 or 2 day conference. And these conferences are more a marketting hype, so will be *heavily* sponsored by the companies who present at them. So, $300 for a 3 day conference, where it's stuff that's actually relevant and useful to my job, and isn't just a marketting exercise by the vendors who spam me with plenty of material anyway, is, in my view, good value for money. Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1737 839676 Internet Engineering Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1737 839516 BBC Internet Services | Email: Simon.Lockhart@bbc.co.uk Kingswood Warren,Tadworth,Surrey,UK | URL: http://support.bbc.co.uk/
On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 07:24:33AM +0100, Simon Lockhart wrote:
We used to pay $150 or so to attend NANOG conferences. Why are we charged $300 now? Where is our $150,000+ going?
To be perfectly honest, I'm more than happy with the cost of the NANOG conference.
I get probably 2 or 3 invitations to "conferences" every week through the post, and they're all the equivalent of $2000 upwards for a 1 or 2 day conference. And these conferences are more a marketting hype, so will be *heavily* sponsored by the companies who present at them.
So, $300 for a 3 day conference, where it's stuff that's actually relevant and useful to my job, and isn't just a marketting exercise by the vendors who spam me with plenty of material anyway, is, in my view, good value for money.
It all depends on your financial status. I can think of quite a few very competent "industry" people who have been unable to attend the recent nanogs due to their companies either having gone under or being in the process of going under. But then again, there are already too many people who don't belong at a NANOG showing up and crowding the rooms because they didn't know what to expect. Keeping the costs slightly high does help both companies and individuals consider carefully if they really care about all the geekiness that goes on there, or if they are better off pursuing their "CCNA to be" careers through some other means. Not being elitist, just being realistic on what some people expect to get out of going to the conferences. This isn't Defcon after all. :) So while I agree that it probably doesn't cost more then a few peoples time for a few weeks, and the money is probably going to fund other Merit activities, I'm not certain that I'd want the prices dropped much lower. Unless of course, they'd like to give discounts for people who have attended many past NANOGs are who are now unemployeed. :) -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)
On 04/10/02, Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> wrote:
So while I agree that it probably doesn't cost more then a few peoples time for a few weeks, and the money is probably going to fund other Merit activities, I'm not certain that I'd want the prices dropped much lower. Unless of course, they'd like to give discounts for people who have attended many past NANOGs are who are now unemployeed. :)
Unemployment is a great time to write up a presentation. -- J.D. Falk "say your peace" -- Scott Nelson <jdfalk@cybernothing.org> (probably a typo, but I like it)
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?
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/
minor quibble. on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN" i suspect it was meant as "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA". we used to joke about needing a passport to go that far north of downtown, but Richmond Hill isn't in China. 8^) -- [ Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +1 416 410-5633 ] [ I want to live forever, or die trying. ]
Previously, Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org) wrote:
minor quibble.
on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN"
i suspect it was meant as "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA".
Nope, "Ontario, CA" would be Ontario, California to all of us in the United States. (And KONT to all you pilots.) :-) -- Douglas A. Dever doug@usvoicedata.com
On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 04:52:58PM -0400, Douglas A. Dever wrote:
Previously, Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org) wrote:
minor quibble.
on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN"
i suspect it was meant as "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA".
Nope, "Ontario, CA" would be Ontario, California to all of us in the United States. (And KONT to all you pilots.) :-)
"Ontario, CA" would be Ontario, Canada. "Ontario, CA, US" would be Ontario, California. lest you forget, the ISO did designate "US" for your country, not that it seems to be used much. NANOG is North American ...., which includes a couple other countries than just them Untied States. -- [ Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +1 416 410-5633 ] [ I want to live forever, or die trying. ]
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Douglas A. Dever wrote:
Previously, Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org) wrote:
minor quibble.
on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN"
iso-3166 says cn is china, that might further than I'm willing to travel for nanog.
i suspect it was meant as "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA".
Nope, "Ontario, CA" would be Ontario, California to all of us in the United States. (And KONT to all you pilots.) :-)
-- Douglas A. Dever doug@usvoicedata.com
-- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli Academic User Services joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu -- PGP Key Fingerprint: 1DE9 8FCA 51FB 4195 B42A 9C32 A30D 121E -- The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. - James Madison, Federalist Papers 47 - Feb 1, 1788
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Douglas A. Dever wrote:
Previously, Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org) wrote:
minor quibble.
on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN"
iso-3166 says cn is china, that might further than I'm willing to travel for nanog.
Chinese poutine. The mind reels.
Unless of course, they'd like to give discounts for people who have attended many past NANOGs are who are now unemployeed. :)
Unfortunately discounts just aren't feasible - there'd be administrative problems and questions of fairness to other attendees (and to Merit, since our per-attendee costs wouldn't change.) Plus, we're not sure it would solve the problem, considering everyone's high travel and hotel costs. There's always multicast and RealAudio ...
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Jim Mercer wrote:
minor quibble.
on http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0206/index.html, it says: "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CN"
i suspect it was meant as "Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA".
we used to joke about needing a passport to go that far north of downtown, but Richmond Hill isn't in China.
But if you like Chinese food, you won't have any problems finding lots of it there :-) K
we used to joke about needing a passport to go that far north of downtown, but Richmond Hill isn't in China.
But if you like Chinese food, you won't have any problems finding lots of it there :-)
K
I dunno if this is on topic or not, but... I was just in Toronto a few weeks ago and stayed at this very same hotel that the next meeting is at. A few tips: 1) The phones in the hotel room have somewhat free local calls. $1 per call for up to an hour, $0.10/min past that. There's a little card near the phone explaining this, but I missed it completely and left my laptop dialed up overnight to download some files. Two lines per room, with a data port, but no spare power outlets anywhere, so bring a power strip. :) 2) There's a very small mall/food court attached to this hotel. There's even a small computer store in it, that had a firewire cable i desperately needed. Perhaps someone should warn them that a bunch of nerds are coming. :) The food court is pretty small, but there's an asian restaraunt of some kind that does sell poutine. (Even the nearby McDonalds sells poutine, but i'd recommend getting it somewhere else if you haven't yet experienced poutine at its finest - see earlier in this thread if you have no idea what I'm talking about) 3) This area has alot of asian shops around... If you're a fan of sushi, you'll be in heaven. -- Kevin
participants (11)
-
Douglas A. Dever -
Howard C. Berkowitz -
J.D. Falk -
Jim Mercer -
Joel Jaeggli -
Kevin Day -
Krzysztof Adamski -
Paul Revere -
Richard A Steenbergen -
Simon Lockhart -
Susan Harris