Re: Suggestion on participant registration

[Pockey Lam <pockeylam gnome org>]

Hi Akhil,
> We will surely give delegates food coupon. What i wanted to communicate
> that we won't order food in advance. We will just give approximate
> number to caterer. We will pay him based on actual number of coupons or
> plates consumed which ever suits better for caterer. If we are short of
> food, people can eat in college canteen or outside near by restaurants.
Excellent :)
> Main hall (where we will have opening/closing ceremony and keynotes) has
> capacity of 800 people. Other halls have capacity of 250 people but they
> are 400 meters far from main hall so we asked college administrator to
> give us two-three big rooms (which are near main hall) which can
> accommodate 50-70 people. In case we want to go for other halls
> (capacity 250 people), we can get easily. But we felt (when we visited
> the venue) those halls won't give enough opportunity to visit booths as
> booths will be placed in main hall.
if we have only two tracks, it's better to have 1 x 800 and 1 x 250 people
I think 400 meters is not that far as long as we have signs to give 
direction to participants
Besides, can we place some booth in the middle, it will look more 
connected and less far as well :)

> > Based on our experience, we should always allow at least 30 to 40%
> > more participants to register online in order to get to our target
> > participants. But the reference figure I gave was when we didn't
> > charge their entrance fee online.
> > It maybe good to know the figure of foss.in or other paid event to see
> > their ratio of online registration and attendance.
> >
> > So I would suggest either we don't limit online-registration at all,
> > or we give a limit  based on the venue capacity plus a percentage
> > (e.g. at least 30-40% more if not 50% more :-) according to some
> > figures.
> Which ever you feel fits our need, we can go with it. If we don't want
> to keep a maximum quote for registration, i am fine.
>
> We will open registration for close to 20 days like March 1 - March 20.
Sounds good :)
> > I always believe it's better to have too many than not enough :) no
> > matter for sponsors, for speakers or for publicity (and the press). It
> > would be excellent if everybody sitting on the stairs or floor in
> > order to listen to some great talks, no? Otherwise if they cannot get
> > inside the hall, some can actually stay outside to interact with the
> > booths, or see the demo at our GNOME 3 booth.
> >
> > > We are planning to have 3 types of online registration. As we have
> > > decided to have 2 days conference, we have increased the registration
> > > amount little bit.
> > >
> > > 1) Student          - Indian Rs 250 (~ $5)
> > > 2) Delegate         - Indian Rs 500 (~ $11)
> > > 3) Corporate Delete - Indian Rs 2000 (~ $44)
> > what's corporate delegate? who are they?
> Please have a look at http://foss.in/info/corporate-delegates
Got it, kind of donor :)
Good idea!
> I also think it's good that the students of DayanandaSagar are not
> necessary to register online, it gives more quota to other people, and
> we will have more chance to make a more accurate estimation. While
> depends on the attendance rate, we can always give more free quota to
> the students of DayanandaSagar since they are so nice to give us their
> venue for free. What do you think?
> It's not only we, college will also be benefited with the conference.
> They will be using it in their marketing material as they hosted an
> international event. I just want to give them quota so that we know the
> actual number of participants in advance and we can plan better for
> event.
In this case, it's definitely a good idea to give 100 passes for 
DayanandaSagar, the passes can be used for their teachers / staff and 
students :)

As you suggested, other DayanandaSagar students (not the selected 100 
ones) will need to register online, it will certainly be easier to manage
> > In the meantime, all rules of entrance fee should be written very
> > clearly
> We should note them in faq (yet to added on website).
> > Since they are sponsors (our customers:) even they forgot to register
> > online, we should have the flexibility to allow them to join us
> > anytime by registering on the spot. Maybe we should consider to have
> > badges to give away esp. to speakers, sponsors, volunteers with their
> > name tags as well
> We should ask them to bring company badge (ID) so that it will be easier
> for us to allow them
yep, and we can always ask them in advance who will be joining so we can 
prepare badges or so on
> > > There are two more sub-events (Student Training and How to make money by
> > > GNOME) which will require registration and if we want them to be covered
> > > in online registration, we may have to create a separate page.
> > For student training, who will be our target participants, can we also
> > accept non- Dayananda sagar Institute students to join?
> If we go for training, it will be open for all students who ever want to
> join.
the three days will be school days, will students have school?
if u think there will be other school students joining, in this case, 
provided if we have enough space (venue), we can just use the same form 
as an option for them to choose which day they are gonna join? it's 
gonna to be easier for everybody and participants don't need to fill 
twice :) what do u think?

Thanks,
Pockey