Jared Mauch wrote:
The one thing you're probally forgetting is hotel costs.
Rent enough space in a hotel to fit 500 people in.
Not that expensive.. especially when you tell them most of these 500 people
will be renting rooms there.
You can't bring outside food into there, you need to use
the hotel food. (Or you can, but not in large quantities), unless
you're going to bus everyone somewhere else.
You can. Just gotta negotiate 
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers also, but not in a
"where the hell are you spending my money" sort of fashion. these
things have costs, how many hotel people were there to be our slaves?
quite a few.
OK, 15 slaves @ $10/hr * 16 hours (2x8) = $2400, or $4.80 per attendee.
50 slaves @ $10/hr * 16 hours = $16.00 per attendee. That's one personal
assistant for every 10 people.
I agree with Jamie.
Having negotiated fairly significant conventions before (low-thousands of
people) with hotels, and having done several seminars and such at the same
kind of venues, this isn't that difficult to do.
$250/person (not including accomodations) is outrageous unless there's money
being siphoned off or silly things are being done.
Jared Mauch wrote:
The one thing you're probally forgetting is hotel costs.
Rent enough space in a hotel to fit 500 people in.
Not that expensive.. especially when you tell them most of these 500 people
will be renting rooms there.
So then you would be willing to bay around $180+ per room/nite?
Trust me not everyone stays at the hotel. Many are working on tight
budgets and have to stay at places that run around 60 to 90 per nite.
If your stay/nites don't hit a magic number then they don't discount
the meeting space.
You can't bring outside food into there, you need to use
the hotel food. (Or you can, but not in large quantities), unless
you're going to bus everyone somewhere else.
You can. Just gotta negotiate
BTDTGT (Been There Done That, Got the T-Shirt)
Understand that a Hotel makes a LARGE portion of their $$ on establishments
or food and booze. You can get discounts on meals and such, but if you
give in one area you may have to take in another area.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers also, but not in a
"where the hell are you spending my money" sort of fashion. these
things have costs, how many hotel people were there to be our slaves?
quite a few.
OK, 15 slaves @ $10/hr * 16 hours (2x8) = $2400, or $4.80 per attendee.
Is that $10 loaded including medical, dental, workers comp?
By the way how much do you charge your customers to come out and setup
there network, or better yet fix it. I mean you pay your tech's what,
20 or 30 per hour, I'd bet you charge more like 60 to 100 per hour
Bad example on your part.
Its amazing to me how much bandwidth is wasted talking about
where each dollar goes. If you have real questions then direct
them PRIVATELY to those in the know.
Personally hosting NANOG 12 was quite an educational experience for
us at iHighway.net. I have worked on many shows in the past and
NANOG is certainly a different breed.
jmbrown@ihighway.net