I agree the retreats I looked at were on the more expensive end because of some travel grants because they were longer, as were the EAGx events (which means you should also expect the EAGx costs to go down). I think some recent EAGx events might come close to that cost-per-person.
I think another reasonable takeaway from this is “keep retreats cheap”, and perhaps I should’ve included that.
I want to chip in that several years ago it was very normal for retreat participants to chip in on the cost of the retreats. I think this is pretty normal in comparison settings (ie: student group retreats for clubs in the US) and would be excited about more groups doing a bit more of this (not necessarily all of them but I think this isn’t in the option space of some group organizers right now and should be). I think this gives participants a bit more stake in the retreat going well but that is not super evidence-based.
It is also, always possible to offer subsidies/financial assistance for anyone who might find the cost prohibitive. Although, it seems important to make it very easy and nonawkward for them to flag if they need assistance (ie: in the signup form explicitly say that people are in very different financial situations and you expect some people to need this.)
Yes good point! We haven’t done this yet (apart from the fact we expect participants to cover their own travel costs (easily done in NL with good public transport)) BUT for our ‘EA professionals’ retreat last autumn we did ask people to give an indication of how much they’d be willing to pay. I’ve included the results below.
And to give an idea of the respondents, here’s some more data:
Thanks!
I agree the retreats I looked at were on the more expensive end because of some travel grants because they were longer, as were the EAGx events (which means you should also expect the EAGx costs to go down). I think some recent EAGx events might come close to that cost-per-person.
I think another reasonable takeaway from this is “keep retreats cheap”, and perhaps I should’ve included that.
I want to chip in that several years ago it was very normal for retreat participants to chip in on the cost of the retreats. I think this is pretty normal in comparison settings (ie: student group retreats for clubs in the US) and would be excited about more groups doing a bit more of this (not necessarily all of them but I think this isn’t in the option space of some group organizers right now and should be). I think this gives participants a bit more stake in the retreat going well but that is not super evidence-based.
It is also, always possible to offer subsidies/financial assistance for anyone who might find the cost prohibitive. Although, it seems important to make it very easy and nonawkward for them to flag if they need assistance (ie: in the signup form explicitly say that people are in very different financial situations and you expect some people to need this.)
Yes good point! We haven’t done this yet (apart from the fact we expect participants to cover their own travel costs (easily done in NL with good public transport)) BUT for our ‘EA professionals’ retreat last autumn we did ask people to give an indication of how much they’d be willing to pay. I’ve included the results below.
And to give an idea of the respondents, here’s some more data:
Thanks for sharing this, James!