Minutes for Tuesday, October 13th, 2015, 15:00 UTC

Special meeting to discuss conference sponsorship levels with GUADEC and GNOME.Asia organizing teams.

Attending

• Board
  • Allan
  • Jeff
  • Kat
  • Shaun
• GUADEC team
  • Markus
  • Benjamin
  • Tobi
• GNOME.Asia team
  • Max

  • BinLi

  • Emily
  • Shobha

Regrets

• Cosimo
• Andrea

Shaun's notes on sponsorship levels

Here's the last two years of sponsorship levels at GUADEC and GNOME.Asia, along with the sponsors at those levels:

• GUADEC 2014
  • Platinum Level: 20000 USD
    • No sponsors for this sponsorship level
  • Gold Level: 13000 USD
    • 2 sponsors (Red Hat, Google)
  • Silver level: 6500 USD
    • 2 sponsors (Igalia, SUSE)
  • Bronze level: 1300 USD
    • 4 sponsors (Ubuntu, Seafile, code.csdn.net, Gitcafe)
  • Supporter level: N/A
• GUADEC 2015
  • Platinum Level: 15000 EUR
    • No sponsors for this sponsorship level
  • Gold Level: 10000 EUR
    • 2 sponsors (Red Hat, Google)
  • Silver level: 5000 EUR
    • 2 sponsors (Igalia, SUSE)
  • Bronze level: 2500 EUR

    • 3 sponsors (GitCafe, Seafile, Ubuntu)

  • Supporter level: 1000 EUR
    • 3 sponsors (ownCloud, Codethink, Endocode)
• GNOME Asia 2014
  • Platinum Level: 12000 USD
    • No sponsors for this sponsorship level
  • Gold Level: 9000 USD
    • 1 sponsor (Google)
  • Silver level: 5000 USD
    • 2 sponsors (Red Hat, SUSE)
  • Bronze level: 2500 USD
    • 2 sponsors (Firefox, Tencent)
• GNOME Asia 2015
  • Platinum Level: 12000 USD
    • No sponsors for this sponsorship level
  • Gold Level: 9000 USD
    • No sponsors for this sponsorship level
  • Silver level: 5000 USD
    • 2 sponsors (openSUSE, Telkomindonesia)
  • Bronze level: 2500 USD
    • 1 sponsor (Kominfo)

GUADEC 2015 was listed in euros instead of dollars. By today's rates, the €15000 platinum level is in the ballpark of $17000.

As you can see, nobody comes in at the platinum level for either conference. Google and Red Hat have consistently done gold for GUADEC, but are spottier for GNOME.Asia.

The Karlsruhe bid is counting on €32000 in sponsorship. If we price exactly as in 2015, and if Google and Red Hat come in at the gold level, and if Igalia and SuSE come in at bronze again, and if we manage at least one bronze, we're good.

In dollars, but in the ballpark of GUADEC 2015:

• Platinum, $17000
• Gold, $12000
• Silver, $ 7000

That gives a nice $5000 delta between each. If we keep GNOME.Asia levels the same as the last two years:

• GUADEC
  • Platinum, $17000
  • Gold, $12000
  • Silver, $7000
• Asia
  • Platinum, $12000
  • Gold, $9000
  • Silver, $5000
• Both
  • Platinum, $29000
  • Gold, $21000
  • Silver, $12000

Now the question is, how much of a discount do we give for doing both at once? 10% rounded to 1000s?

• GUADEC
  • Platinum, $17000
  • Gold, $12000
  • Silver, $7000
• Asia
  • Platinum, $12000
  • Gold, $9000
  • Silver, $5000
• Both
  • Platinum, $29000 - $3000 = $26000
  • Gold, $21000 - $2000 = $19000
  • Silver, $12000 - $1000 = $11000

Is that even worthwhile? Higher discount? I don't know. I've never done multi-event discounts before.

As for bronze, set it at some arbitrary low level, and I wouldn't bother offering a combined rate for it.

Minutes

• GNOME.Asia update from Max:
  • New Delhi is the venue
  • April 21st to 24th 2016
• Budget and sponsorship:
  • No GUADEC platinum sponsor in the last years
  • No GNOME.Asia platinum sponsor in the last year
  • Number of sponsors have increased since we reduced the sponsorship level
  • Increasing number of Chinese sponsors for GNOME.Asia
  • Previously we have given a small discount for combined sponsorships. We could consider giving a larger discount. We haven't given a discount for bronze level in the past.
  • We are likely to make a small profit on each conference
  • It is difficult to get historical data for sponsorship prior to 2013

    • Some is available at https://wiki.gnome.org/GUADEC/PlanningHowTo/Sponsors

  • Generally companies use round numbers
  • Time scales for getting sponsorship vary by company, but there is pressure to secure sooner rather than later as budgets are set October/November time
  • Main question is whether local teams are willing to give up some dedicated income in order to promote joint sponsorship
  • We could drop the price of each sponsorship level, such as $15,000 for platinum for GUADEC and $10,000 for GNOME.Asia - we haven't had platinum sponsors for a while, and lowering the bands would give more options lower down the scale (possibly encouraging more sponsors)
  • Possibilities for local sponors for GNOME.Asia 2016? Unclear
  • We should speak to Ad Board members about the possibility of co-sponsorship
  • There might be possibilities for local GUADEC sponsorship, but it is still uncertain
    • Smaller contributions are more likely
  • Max - difficulty selling GNOME to potential sponsors (cites Korea example). Need to offer other benefits? Could offer talk slots? Sponsors may ask for information about attendees, such as email addresses. This has not been done for privacy reasons, but is not unusual in Asia.
  • General feeling from the GUADEC team is that the discount for combined sponsorship is too low. Could be something more like 20%.
  • The risk with increasing the discount - no companies jointly sponsor that wouldn't anyway.
  • Emily - it's a good idea to have a large discount for co-sponsorship. Could be used to bring GNOME.Asia sponsors to GUADEC.
  • Emily - GNOME.Asia has a rule that companies that sponsor for 3 years get a bonus of a higher sponsorship level.
  • Emily - community level sponsorship is good - there have been potential sponsors who haven't been able to afford bronze level in the past
  • GNOME.Asia team will have an IRC meeting next Tuesday, where they will discuss sponsorship
  • Annual reports are ready to be shipped - sponsorship brochure should be ready this week or early next week at the latest
  • Both local teams are happy to readjust the sponsorship levels and to offer an increased discount for cosponsorship
  • ACTION: Allan to take the sponsorship brochure forward, through the Engagement Team
  • ACTION: Allan to make the board should finalise the sponsorship levels and joint sponsorship discount, and email the organising teams for comment

New action items

• Allan to take the sponsorship brochure forward, through the Engagement Team
• Allan to make the board should finalise the sponsorship levels and joint sponsorship discount, and email the organising teams for comment