I've been a big believer in running Umbraco as transparent as
possible and every now and then this brings upon interesting
challenges. This week I had one of the bigger ones.
When going through the CodeGarden 10 budget it turned
out that I had made a number of mistakes that meant that the cost
price for doing the conference was higher than the early bird price
for the tickets. At the same time we had sold more than double the
number of early bird tickets that the previous years. In other
words, we were loosing money on CodeGarden.
We've always kept the ticket price (and therefore the buffer)
low as CodeGarden is a non-profit event. We (the HQ) work for free
and the money from the conference is spent on gathering the most
active people in the ecosystem - the MVPs, the most active cores
and the speakers - by paying for their plane tickets, hotel and
arranging a
pre-CodeGarden weekend where we discuss the state and future of
the Umbraco project.
But I was frustrated and embarrassed beyond belief. This year it
wouldn't be a non-profit event, it would be a money loss event. It
was a result of me being sloppy when doing the initial budget and
not adding enough buffer. It was entirely my fault. No excuses.
So last week I decided that we would take the hit in the HQ and
write the loss of as a marketing expense. As such - gathering 250
people for three days - the expense was low. But it didn't feel
right. CodeGarden has never been a marketing
event. It's not OUR (the HQs) event, it's the community's
event.
So with shaking hands I wrote an e-mail to everyone who had
bought the early bird tickets, telling them the truth and letting
them know that by paying an additional EUR65 the conference would
mount up. I stared at the send button for minutes before finally
clicking. However, my fear for the response was unnecessary. The
response was overwhelmingly positive and within the first six hours
25% of all the attendees had paid the extra.
CodeGarden came back to the community. The only place it
belongs. Nobody owns a movement.