Can we not make this donation based? The ideal solution would be to make it free for everyone to attend. The more people that attend this event, the fast adoption will happen.
Brian and I discussed various pricing options, including having it be entirely free. Our conclusion was that even with a free ticket, the expense to attend (hotel, travel, food, etc) was already 3x even a $300 ticket fee. Our conclusion is that anyone willing to pay $1000+ in travel expenses would consider a $300 ticket fee to be insignificant in the economic calculation on whether or not to attend.
We will probably be spending more than we earn in ticket sales to produce the best conference in Bitcoin history... so I think a scholarship program for people who deserve to be there given their ideas, but are unable to afford it. This really must be done on a case by case basis.
Didn't you already raise funds for this with Angelshares? If you're concerned about expense I don't really understand the choice for Vegas or frankly putting on "the best conference in bitcoin history". Either cost matters or it doesn't, don't skimp on the next generation of talent to keep more budget for Bitshares Babes.
We believe that AGS donors expect us to make responsible business decisions with their donations. Part of that involves putting on events that at least partially pay for themselves. Standard marketing industry best practices do involve giving away free T-shirts and sponsoring "fun" events that the more fiscally conservative technocrats among us might find "unnecessary". We'll leave that to the marketing professionals. On the other hand, we are challenging all of our department managers to run their departments in the black. That is one of the practical controls that keeps things from running amuk while allowing each manager the freedom to ply his or her skills to the max.
Cost matters. Performance matters. Balance matters.
Nobody suggested making the event free, I just was asking if the point of the AGS "buffer" wasn't to enable the growth and benefit of the ecosystem that would lend itself to a robust sponsorship program where you guys get to choose interesting projects/individuals to include. The ticket price paid by normal attendees subsidizes the more interesting, resource challenged individuals.
I agree cost should matter which is why putting on "the best conference bitcoin has ever seen" in las vegas doens't make a ton of sense to me. If you're really going for maximum impact per dollar, Spend the money flying interesting people into virginia for workshops at an expanded HQ.
If the point is to grow the ecosystem and have a good time, vegas makes sense. I am aware of the developer conference we're piggybacking, just not that that convinced of its value.