I’m actually going to reply to my own comment here with the cardinal sin of thinking of another point after hitting ‘post’, but not wanting to disrupt the flow of the original comment!
I believe there IS a case to be made for teaching organisers how to better spend funds smartly. I have been to larger EA events before where I’ve thought to myself ‘this could have been done at half the price’. Maybe it’s the fact I grew up in an environment where you had to make every penny stretch as far as possible, but it blew me away when another group leader mentioned to me they don’t negotiate costs with vendors! Like haggle on price for room fees, food etc. Some find it distasteful, and I get that, but a lot could be saved.
Also, some events can be unnecessarily ostentatious. Like do we really need a room with this much gold and antique clocks? You could have rented a soviet-style office room at half the price like 2 miles away.
Then again, it’s very easy for me to criticise others given my near-zero large-scale event planning experience. Maybe there are other factors I’m not considering. That said, maybe give group leaders some books on negotiation or on frugality tips. That may help a range of the issues highlighted in this post.
I’m actually going to reply to my own comment here with the cardinal sin of thinking of another point after hitting ‘post’, but not wanting to disrupt the flow of the original comment!
I believe there IS a case to be made for teaching organisers how to better spend funds smartly. I have been to larger EA events before where I’ve thought to myself ‘this could have been done at half the price’. Maybe it’s the fact I grew up in an environment where you had to make every penny stretch as far as possible, but it blew me away when another group leader mentioned to me they don’t negotiate costs with vendors! Like haggle on price for room fees, food etc. Some find it distasteful, and I get that, but a lot could be saved.
Also, some events can be unnecessarily ostentatious. Like do we really need a room with this much gold and antique clocks? You could have rented a soviet-style office room at half the price like 2 miles away.
Then again, it’s very easy for me to criticise others given my near-zero large-scale event planning experience. Maybe there are other factors I’m not considering. That said, maybe give group leaders some books on negotiation or on frugality tips. That may help a range of the issues highlighted in this post.