Re: site fees

[Beth Morris <bmorris@access.digex.net>]

Poster: Beth Morris <bmorris@access.digex.net>

jsrechts@imap.unc.edu wrote:
> 
> Poster: jsrechts@imap.unc.edu
> 
> Are site prices really  skyrocketing?  Or is there another explanation?
> It seems to me that it's costing a lot more to daytrip than it has
> in the past.  Anyone else observe this?


I'll come down on both sides of that question.  

Yes, a lot of sites cost more than they did ten years ago (or even five
years ago), and that cost is getting passed on to the attendees.  Also,
a lot of sites are charging us per person, which means we have to pass
that along directly (regardless of the number of attendees we have),
with a *slight* surcharge for things like TP and hall decorations and
stuff.  It seems to me that more sites used to charge us a flat rate, so
that the more people showing at the event, the lower the per-person
cost.  But that could be a perception thing.

The other issue is one of budgeting.  Some time ago (last summer?) I
posted Tante Keilyn's Guide to Running a Break-Even Event, which is what
I think events should be.  If someone wants to see it again, email me
privately, but basically, budgeting isn't very hard.  It *does* however,
require an educated guess/gamble as to how many people will attend your
event.  If you guess way low (that is, more people show than you
projected), then you'll make an unintentional profit.  If you guess
high, your group might lose some money (hopefully not much).  This
guessing is the only "gamble" in the process, and it can be learned.

In the above paragraph, I mentioned unintentional profit.  Some years
ago (okay, some = 12?) I ran a Kingdom event that made a (probably
record-breaking for the time) $700 profit.  We had predicted a moderate
turnout for a Kingdom event on the Eastern Shore, and I think we ended
up with something like 500 people!  With a modest ($3?) site fee, we
ended up with a monster profit.  That will happen from time to time. 
These days, however, I think it's more predictable, and even that
shouldn't happen very often.

That said, I think events *designed* to raise money are an abomination
and shouldn't be held, but obviously they are anyway.  Sometimes they're
advertised as such and sometimes not.  Kingdom Crusades *is*, which,
considering the cost of that site, is borderline offensive.  But that's
my *opinion*, not fact.

Keilyn
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