[Scale-planning] Expo Pass

Hriday Balachandran bala at socallinuxexpo.org
Tue Mar 7 16:23:08 UTC 2017


As someone that ran the room volunteers committee for a few years, I
can say that we had an implicit policy of letting anyone with a badge
(any badge) into a talk if there was space. That's what makes us a
grassroots event. Do I wish that the expo passes go and upgrade? Yes.
But most of the time, it won't happen. And we are talking about a
small percentage of people. So, I am of the opinion of letting it
slide.

People that buy the expo only pass and wander into the talks know what
they are doing. If they want to game the system, sure.

Bala.

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 6:56 AM, Mx Siltanen <mrsiltanen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FYI - I think giving those with a limited budget an opportunity to
> participate in SCaLE is good, and what I like to do is mention the
> opportunity to volunteer and help out as a way to join us.
> This is what I replied:
>
> "Glad you enjoyed the talks! Note, The expo pass is only supposed to allow
> you into the expo hall and no talks. SCaLE is a volunteer community run
> event for us all, it is non-profit and we basically try to break even each
> year on what renting the conference costs. The expo pass was an attempt to
> encourage those who only wanted to go to the expo the opportunity to do so.
> If you're looking to save money and help out I would like to encourage you
> to volunteer - if you help setup ( starts 2 days before the event ) and take
> down you can see the entire conference in exchange for some of your time to
> help make this a stronger and better event for us all. ( hint - speakers
> also get a pass in exchange for them sharing their knowledge and experience
> with us all. ) "
>
> [ yes, in hindsight I probably should have said "if you help setup a bit ...
> " or something so that they don't think they have to help both of the 2 days
> before the show.... just a fraction of it.. ]
>
> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 11:42 PM, Peter Benjamin <pete at peterbenjamin.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> What I have done, based upon the IICS, a long gone non profit, with
>> similar goals to Linux, only for CD Authoring, when there was no software
>> available, was to give at the registration table discounts, full discount,
>> to anyone claiming to be a student who could not afford the price.  These
>> people fell into two groups.
>>
>> 1) Very young.  Obviously a student, with limited income.  For them to
>> claim no money, an embarrassment for some people, makes them seem very
>> honest, and earnest.  And deserving a full discount.  No questions.  Give
>> the discount immediately.  No fuss.
>>
>> 2) Older person claiming to be a student.  With limited income.  So few of
>> these, why not let them in for free?
>>
>> And the official policy was eventually worded on the web site to reflect
>> the free entry was available to those willing to come to the registration,
>> claim they are a student, with limited income, and ask if the entry fee
>> could be waived.
>>
>> Point is, making it an official policy, not easily noticed in the
>> registration process, means the studious reader looking for a discount,
>> would find the policy, and have a "code" to use, with the request to bring
>> student id to the registration to confirm.
>>
>> The requirement for student id would not be a firm one.  Anyone claiming
>> limited income would get in free.
>>
>> Just my crazy ideas.  Hope they help at SCaLE 16x.
>>
>> I had a wonderful time.  To all the volunteers, a Big Thank You!
>>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 2017-03-06 at 23:06 -0800, Mx Siltanen wrote:
>>
>>
>> Agreed we should be welcoming to those attending, especially those new to
>> the event.
>>
>> Having gone to many conferences, having door monitors makes the event feel
>> less welcoming.
>>
>> Note what I quoted was from a developers forum of a users group using open
>> source dev language and tools.
>>
>> Printing EXPO ONLY PASS significantly enough different than FULL PASS
>> maybe good enough
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 10:10 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch
>> <ilan at socallinuxexpo.org> wrote:
>>
>> Our stated mission with the IRS is to provide easy access to low cost
>> education on Linux and Open Source software.  With that in mind we want to
>> offer those who are dabblers an opportunity to learn more about open-source.
>>
>> Someone who is just hearing about Linux  or FOSS for the first time and
>> not working professionally in IT is unlikely to shell out $75-100 for a full
>> pass.  Anecdotally I know of several expo only pass holders return in future
>> years at higher levels, but I dont have any data to back that up.
>>
>> In terms of policing, we explicitly decided to nto run around checking
>> passes as we felt it created an unwelcoming atmosphere.  There are however a
>> few exceptions to this:
>>
>> - Legal Training. We need to verify that attendees receiving CLE credits
>> are who they say they are and check them in /out to record the appropriate #
>> of CLE hours.
>>
>> - Expo Floor Setup Hours to ensure exhibitor's belongings are safe and
>> that individual attendees stay out of the area during setup.
>>
>> Yes, I'm confident that that some small % is misusing their expo only
>> passes or skipping registration entirely.  But given the small % of
>> registration this represents I'd prefer to trust our community and
>> attendees.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ilan Rabinovitch
>> Conference Chair
>> Southern California Linux Expo
>> 877-831-2569 x110 Voice
>> 818-442-1865 Mobile
>> ilan at linuxfests.org Email
>>
>> ---
>> Ask me about sponsorship and speaking opportunities at LinuxFests.org's
>> upcoming events:
>> * SeaGL  - Nov 11-12, 2016
>> * SCALE 15x - March 2-5, 2017 - Pasadena, CA
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 4:24 PM, Sean McCabe <sean at socallinuxexpo.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Can I ask what the need was for an expo pass in the first place?
>>
>> If we don't advertise, on the website or at reg, but provide them to
>> people who specifically ask. (exhibitors or people who only wanted to see
>> the expo floor). Wouldn't that solve the issue at hand?
>>
>> I feel like people who want to get in for cheap or free are just going to
>> find ways to do it anyways.
>>
>> Sean
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Lan Dang <ldangmlist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Bruce,
>>
>> We were bummed that you couldn't make it, too.  Thanks for the great
>> advice.
>>
>> I suggest using clipboards.  I can see assembling a checklist and set of
>> speaker bios for each room, so it's available at the table next to the
>> lectern.  You can even attach a pen to the clipboard, so it never gets lost.
>>
>> I bought a bunch of clipboards from Dollar Tree for use with A/V.  We used
>> them to hold our orientation package, to set up the radio signin/signout
>> forms, and any time we needed to organize loose paper.  We mostly bought
>> them to hold our checklists for room teardowns, and that ended up working
>> really well.
>>
>> Lan
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 3:43 PM, Bruce A. Bergman <bruceb at fatcity.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Sadly, I missed SCALE this year -- you guys are making me all nostalgic
>> and stuff. :)
>>
>> I'll just add a comment: any changes to badges which reflect different
>> levels of admission are not going to make a single whit of difference unless
>> you add door/area monitors. Trust me, I've been the conference chair of
>> several very large conferences, and this is an issue I've dealt with time
>> and time again.
>>
>> Speakers do not want to call out attendees who shouldn't in their rooms.
>> Even when we gave them full carte blanche to enforce the rules, they just
>> wouldn't do it. We asked why, and the most common answer is that they didn't
>> want to look like an asshole in front of the other attendees. No matter how
>> you cut it, the speakers end up looking like the bad guy, and that affects
>> their mood, their audience's mood, and ultimately your presentations.
>>
>> You can have roving monitors who look for folks with the wrong badge and
>> gently remind them, but that doesn't do much in the long run. The only
>> solution that ever worked was to have entrance monitors who watch for
>> correct badges. And yes, this definitely adds a fair amount of overhead.
>>
>> We did run with a compromise solution for many years, and that was to take
>> volunteers from the attendees, and have them sign up as an "ambassador" for
>> 2-3 sessions. Their job was to stand by the door of the room at the
>> designated time and check for proper badges. When the presentation was to
>> start, they went up to the lectern and read a pre-placed biographical
>> introduction to the audience, and that was it.
>>
>> In practice, this worked out really well. The speakers had someone who
>> kept them on schedule, who did a nice little intro, and who made sure people
>> in the audience had handouts. The ambassadors liked it because they got to
>> wear a neat little blue "ambassador" flag on their badge, and we invited
>> them to a cozy little "welcome" session prior to the start of the
>> conference, with some little snacks and such. This made them feel special,
>> and after a year or two, this caught on and we always had more than enough
>> ambassadors. The benefit to us, as the conference committee, was that we
>> didn't have to hire or find door monitors. Since the ambassadors were pulled
>> from the attendees themselves, they did our work for us.
>>
>> It's something you might want to consider, if you intend to more strictly
>> enforce the badge issue.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Bruce
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2017-03-06 14:40, Anthony Chow wrote:
>>
>> I was passing out the SCALEx15 t-shirt  at the Expo Hall on Saturday.
>> There was a lady who wanted a T-shirt but she does not even have a badge.
>> Wonder how she could get into the Expo Hall.
>>
>> I think color code the badge for Full Conference and Expo Hall Only is a
>> good start.  This may not fix the problem entirely but we can apply the
>> Defence-in-Depth principle to this problem i.e. this will help some what.
>>
>> Anthony.
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Folks!
>>
>>
>>
>> Great show! I'm not surprised to learn about the people misusing the Expo
>> Only passes. It is sad that they would do that, but it is a real problem!
>> Would it be possible to make the "Expo Only" badges more evident? Every way
>> I can think of would be pretty complex... different art work, or maybe "Expo
>> Only" in Red instead of black. Or how about a different font for the and
>> larger print for the "Expo Only" type? Even that would be a bit complex.
>> Maybe just a different color lanyard?
>>
>>
>>
>> Also on the topic of badges... If the name badge part of the print out
>> could take up 2 adjacent regions so it could be folded in half and the name
>> could be seen from both sides it would solve the problem of 50% of the
>> people wearing badges that show as blank white cards (the back of the name
>> card). It is nice to be able to speak to people by their names, but half the
>> time it isn't possible (unless you already know them... but maybe you
>> haven't seem them for a while and can't remember their names?). If this is
>> done, the fold should be on the lower edge of the badge for easy insertion
>> into the badge holder.
>>
>>
>>
>> Caryl
>>
>>
>>
>> P.S. One of my booth volunteers actually went back and paid for a full
>> pass because he felt he wasn't going to do enough in our booth to deserve
>> full admission. As it turned out, he was a big help, especially on Sunday
>> when several of us had to go over to the OSSIE track and he filled in
>> admirably ... overcoming his shyness to really relate to the people who were
>> stopping by and asking questions.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Scale-planning <scale-planning-bounces at lists.linuxfests.org> on
>> behalf of Mx Siltanen <mrsiltanen at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 1:35:12 PM
>> To: SCALE Planning List
>> Subject: [Scale-planning] Expo Pass
>>
>>
>> FYI -
>>
>> Clearly a number of people were purchasing the expo pass to attend the
>> presentations:
>>
>> "I friend told me that the expo pass is cheaper, I think it's $20, I don't
>> know what it's limitations are. The talks I saw today were fantastic, total"
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Scale-planning mailing list
>> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
>> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Scale-planning mailing list
> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
> https://lists.linuxfests.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scale-planning


More information about the Scale-planning mailing list