If we started receiving lots of “this conference felt too big” feedback, then yes we would possibly action on that, but that hasn’t really happened yet
The largest EA Global was about 1000 people in 2016, and we got feedback that it was too big and that it was easy to get lost in the shuffle. Our recent events have been between 500 − 650 people including speakers, volunteers, and staff.
Venues above that size tend to be significantly more expensive, or less suited to the event. We already subsidize tickets and provide financial aid to keep prices reasonable, so more attendees cost CEA more. (We know there are a variety of opinions about the tradeoffs between cost and the quality of the venue/logistics/catering, and we’ll continue to look at those tradeoffs carefully.)
We’ll continue exploring the question of how big the event should be, including ways to help people connect better even within a large event.
I’m not too familiar with EA Global 2016 but I’ll note that we did ask attendees whether they felt the conference was too big at EA Global: SF 2022 and they generally thought the size of the event was fine.
Since 2016, we introduced Swapcard (our networking app), which changes the dynamic somewhat and allows people to more easily find relevant people to meet (and hence make people feel less lost in the shuffle). We’ve also introduced more production staff and overall support since 2016, meaning we’ve gotten larger venues with spaces that are more suitable for bigger audiences.
I was definitely apprehensive going to a larger EAG more recently, so was pleasantly surprised at how Swapcard enabled the conference to be scaled up while maintaining the high rate of useful connections of a smaller more curated conference.
This directly contradicts this December 2019 EA Forum post about EAG admissions, which has the following as a reply to “Why not make [EAG] larger?” (emphasis mine):
I’m not too familiar with EA Global 2016 but I’ll note that we did ask attendees whether they felt the conference was too big at EA Global: SF 2022 and they generally thought the size of the event was fine.
Since 2016, we introduced Swapcard (our networking app), which changes the dynamic somewhat and allows people to more easily find relevant people to meet (and hence make people feel less lost in the shuffle). We’ve also introduced more production staff and overall support since 2016, meaning we’ve gotten larger venues with spaces that are more suitable for bigger audiences.
I was definitely apprehensive going to a larger EAG more recently, so was pleasantly surprised at how Swapcard enabled the conference to be scaled up while maintaining the high rate of useful connections of a smaller more curated conference.