las-gnome Update on Denver | Budget (response needed)

[Nuritzi Sanchez <nuritzis stanfordalumni org>]

Hi all, 

Sri was able to put together an updated budget for the conference in Denver and it looks like the estimated cost would be around $9K USD instead of the original projection of about $4K. Since this is significantly more than what was predicted during our last meeting, we wanted to ask the LAS group for updated thoughts. 

If James is still willing, we could still hold the conference in Montreal, where the venue is free. This would reduce the cost from about $9K to about $2K and we might be able to have more elaborate social events or provide more in travel sponsorship. Montreal would still have the inconvenience of badging attendees in and out and also a limited local team capacity.

I'm not sure that the Stanford option is still available since we decided to go with the Denver option, but the cost for that would have been more around $6K total. It would also still have the inconvenience of having a venue for only 3 days and not 4, so we would need to get people to use a library or some other free space for the last day (this shouldn't be a problem and I have several breakout spaces in mind we could use for free). 

As a relevant side note, Sri will be aiming to raise about $10K. 

Should we proceed with Denver or pursue one of our other bids? Your thoughts are appreciated. If needed, we can have another meeting, but we can also discuss via email or Telegram, so let's get some initial thoughts going and can do a meeting if needed. 

Best, 

Nuritzi & Sri

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