[MR] Event fees for WOW

[Michael Houghton]

Howdy!

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 3:43 PM, Steve Lackey <edeconde at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> --
>
> My philosophy is that any event that nets a group more than $500.00 in
> "profit" (defined simply as moneys left over after all event related
> expenses have been paid) for a group is obscene in todays economy, and
> is not providing a service to the membership at large. ...[snip]

That's awfully strong language. You are, of course, free to attend or not
attend events as you see fit. It's not helpful, however, to use term such as
"obscene" or the like to characterize the profit from an event, especially
when you are almost certainly not considering the particular financial
details of the event and the group hosting it.
>
> On the other hand, I know what it will cost me to go, and these days
> an event has to be really worth the money. I can't afford to be
> padding anybody else's budget (If I could it would be my own
> Barony's!). If an event doesn't provide enough value for it's site
> fee, it has to be pretty close (thus having less in travel fees), or
> have enough friends there, or offer specific fighting that I want to
> participate in (thus making up with "fun" time)  to make up for the
> lack of value the site provides. I'm sure that I am not alone in this
> type of reasoning.

Absolutely. We all do this. The problem arises when people get
excessively vocal about why they are not going to a particular
event. You have to decide if the event cost is worth it to you. That
is independent of whether or not the budet is "padded" (and there
you go again with the language).
>
> The $5.00 penalty for paying at the gate is to my mind, excessive. I
> understand the desire to get as many pre-registrations as possible. As
> an autocrat, it is one of the issues that weighs on my mind when I'm
> running an event such as the upcoming Kings Assessment (Shameless plug
> - $7.00 site fee for the weekend, on a nicer site). On the other hand
> at this event, pre-registration is required for land allotment as
> well. So if I don't pre-register, I get penalized twice - once at the
> gate, and once more in camp if there is not enough room to fit me in
> somewhere in their allotment. I could be overly sensitive to it, but
> it feels a little bit like getting my arm twisted, and I don't like
> that one bit. It's not as if land is at a premium on this site after
> all.

Consider that people who pay in advance provide event revenues to
the hosts before the event. This helps with the cash flow as well as the
planning for head count. People who pay at the door cost more in a
"time value of money" sense. $5 is the number that the WoW team
settled on. Pre-registration for camping space also allows them to
better lay out the land. A camp that suddenly want to expand by 20%
to accommodate non-preregistered folks can't do that unless there
is room reserved for growth. Close neighbors preclude that.

You can pre-register, or pay more at the door, or decide it's not worth
attending. That's you call. Oh, the little snark about "nicer site" is
really cute, too.

yours,
Herveus


-- 
Michael Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde
herveus at gmail.com         | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA            | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
                          | http://whitewolfandphoenix.com