I suspect I’ll post more thoughts on running a WordCamp in the weeks to come, but I recently ran into an interesting situation that’s one of those little things that doesn’t come up in the obvious list of things to do or considerations for these types of events. How does one prioritize the expenses and weigh that vs. the (limited) amount of sponsor dollars?

Some of the event costs are fixed and mandatory (facility) or directly related to the number of participants (T-shirts), but others are variable and need to be prioritized. When it comes to food, there are a lot of options from cheap to fancy, with all sorts of options in between. I want to provide a nice meal experience for the participants, along with a reasonable supply of beverages. Other expenses are entirely in the “optional” category but are nice to have. There is a strong desire in the community (both locally and worldwide) to have sessions recorded or even better, streamed live.

The community would benefit from the streaming, but one could make a darned good argument that the first priority should be to the participants who are paying to attend the event in person. Last night I sat at my desk considering whether we’d be able to afford streaming, or whether to provide better quality food for the participants. There’s no one “right” answer. I think we have things arranged for this year’s event, but this is but one of many such choices to be made.

Ah, to have one of those trees that grows money for WordCamps…