Hi all!
Hopefully a little more news coming this way shortly
In the meantime I had a question for you all: what do you think about an entry fee?
At the moment I'm covering all the expenses, and at this stage I've asked exhibiting stores and so forth if they would perhaps consider contributing via a prize draw of some kind, rather than directly paying towards costs.
I'd really rather not have an entry fee, especially considering that many of the attendees will also be bringing their own gear for the benefit of us all.
For the sake of absolute clarity let me say that I do not mind covering the costs for this year, that isn't an issue here. So far the costs have only come to $400 (+$300 bond) for venue hire, and I don't expect them to increase too substantially from there (awaiting quotes for a little external generator hire to augment our power supply, tripping the fuses with all our amps and their overbuilt power supplies is one way to ruin the whole day). My thought is that if there were an entry fee (max $10), then that money could go towards some of this years costs and also toward subsidising the cost of repeating the event next year. We do want this happen annually right? For myself I'd certainly like to solidify the future of meets such as this in NZ.
There are a few ways this could go I suppose...for the sake of discussion a few options:
1. Private exhibitors enter free (or perhaps private exhibitors and Head-Fi members, even if not exhibiting), and all others pay the fee. In some ways this could have benefits - charging a fee (any fee) will discourage some of the random looky-loos who might come, while also helping to fund the events continuation. I have no idea what kind of reach the even might have beyond our group, I would think not that much (for reference Addicted to Audio in Melbourne managed about 60 people over the course of an afternoon at a meet they arranged).
2. Some generous souls here at Head-Fi, under no obligation whatsoever, could offer to share some portion of the costs with me to subsidise things to either eliminate an entry fee altogether or enable scenario 1.
3. Everyone pays.
4. ???
Anyways, I thought I would open a discussion on this. This isn't my event; it's our event. I'd like to keep things transparent and have an arrangement we're happy with, I think that's how a community should go about this.