Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in general

Such a review of conference fees is very timely, given the majority of
attendees in our events are from academia and the economic hardship
universities in many states in the US and internationally are facing, at
present. In particular, many universities have increased tuition and
other fees and the increments have to come from faculty research
budgets, reducing available funding for other areas such as conferences.

I believe the subject is very important and it would be good if an ad
hoc committee at the IEEE COMSOC management level could be created to
look into how to make the IEEE conferences more financially accessible
to its membership.

- Bijan

Joe Touch wrote:
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> Roch Guerin wrote:
>> Joe,
>>
>> Points well-taken. On the other hand "not for profit" and "fiscal
>> responsibility" are two different concepts. I would argue that many
>> conferences could run a tighter budget and pass the savings on to
>> attendees.
>
> As I noted, I have quite a bit of direct experience with budgets of
> specific meetings in both the IEEE and ACM.
>
> The basic costs are 75% food (or more), and the rest is *very* hard to
> minimize.
>
> The bottom line is that we could reduce the cost IF we delete *food*.
>
>> Let me make just one punctual and I believe representative comparison:
>> - ACM CoNEXT 2009 early registration for (ACM and SIGCOMM) members:
>> $525 (it was $525 last year - an increase of 0%, and btw so was it in 2007)
>> - IEEE INFOCOM 2010 early registration for (ComSoc) members: $750 (it
>> was $680 last year - an increase of over 10%, and it was $695 in 2008??)
>
> CoNEXT is 2.5 days.
>
> Infocom is 3 days, or 20% longer, just to start.
>
> Here's a food difference, using my previous estimates:
>
> Infocom = 410 food (est)
> - 1 welcome reception 40
> - 6 coffee breaks 6*25=150
> - 3 lunches 3*40=120
> - 1 banquet 1*100
>
> CoNEXT = 305 (est)
> - 5 coffee breaks
> - 2 lunches
> - 1 banquet
>
> Finally, the IEEE model of overhead and contingency isn't exactly the
> same as the ACM model.
>
>> Looking just at the latest numbers, this amounts to a $225 difference
>> (about 40%) for essentially similar "services," and that cannot be
>> simply brushed aside.
>
> Accounting for the 25% difference in "services", we could either say that:
>
> Infocom should cost 650, or is basically overpriced 15%
> CoNEXT should cost 600, or is basically discounted 12%
>
> The difference can be the result of a number of different issues - e.g.,
> the need to 'restore' buffer accounts in each organization, or other
> overheads as you note below...
>
>> In particular,
>> some conferences have a tradition of freebies for volunteers that I
>> personally find distasteful, and that play no small role in raising
>> their costs (e.g., CoNEXT has no free registrations or travel subsidies
>> for anyone except local student helpers who receive a free student
>> registration).
>
> Well, none given out from the conference, but there are subsidies given
> out by the SIG - and that money comes from conference surpluses. For the
> SIGCOMM conference, this includes the SIGCOMM award winner (who is
> typically the keynote), the student award winner. There are also funds
> for the GeoDiversity grants.
>
>> I believe it is time to take a hard look at what this is
>> costing all of us.
>
> Keep also in mind the difference in the size of the meetings. CoNext had
> 100-150 attendees in past years (the recent numbers aren't posted).
> Infocom has 600. That means, effectively, that every 'free' registration
> costs Infocom attendees only 1/4 what it costs CoNext - e.g., even if
> Infocom gave out 20 free registrations, that's only about a $30
> difference in the overall fees.
>
> As chair of TCCC, I'll be glad to look into this issue further and
> discuss how your concerns can be addressed, though.
>
> Joe
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