Time ratios
|
Attendee time |
Organizer time |
Ratio |
| Manifest 2024 |
500ppl * 20h |
~8mo * 200h/mo |
6:1 |
| The Curve 2024 |
200ppl * 20h |
~4mo * 200h/mo |
5:1 |
|
|
|
|
| Summer Camp 2024 |
50ppl * 30h |
3ppl * 60h |
8:1 |
| Mox, week of 3/15 |
20ppl * 30h |
4ppl * 40h |
4:1 |
| Feb Trading Camp |
13ppl * 40h |
5ppl * 40h |
2:1 |
|
|
|
|
| minifest 2024 |
100ppl * 8h |
30h + 20h |
16:1 |
| AI4E Hackathon |
25ppl * 8h |
10-20h (?) |
10:1 |
| Typical Hackathon |
10ppl * 8h |
1-2h + 4h |
16:1 |
|
|
|
|
| Feb Ski Trip |
10ppl * 30h |
5-10h + 10h (?) |
20:1 |
| Taco Tuesday |
30ppl * 2h |
2-4h |
30:1 |
| GBF Party |
200ppl * 3h |
20h (?) |
30:1 |
| PYOL |
60ppl * 3h |
4-8h |
30:1 |
Observations
- Parties and fun events have really high attendee:organizer time ratios
- Maybe works because people entertain each other in a party?
- Or because parties are good at marketing themselves?
- Or because expectations tend to be lower for a party?
- Organizers probably prefer high ratios
- Economies of scale: usually cheap, on the margin, to add more people
- Amortizes ~fixed cost of planning across more folks
- Also takeaway: extending your event time is an easy way to get higher ratios
- Attendees get more value out of low ratios?
- More organizer time per attendee time = better experience
- Similar to in school: students prefer individualized instruction (Bloom’s two-sigma)
- Explains why Trading Camp should cost so much
- Conferences involve a lot of planning and upfront cost from organizer, attending one is participating in a kind of distilled
- Curious about how unconference-y events stack up
- Kind of want to get Mox time ratio up
- Right now it’s in an early state. Curious how it compares to Constellation or FAR
- Steady state, should be able to support 20ppl : 1 staff?
- Though: maybe venue ratios are just different than event ratios
Questions to ponder
- How do we improve organizer efficiency or productivity?
- Tooling, software like Airtable and Partiful?
- Good venues like Lighthaven (and someday Mox)?
- Putting “attendees” to work
- What would a hypothetical event that maximizes ratio be?
- Many people (party), or very long (retreat, ski trip)
- Or: very little organizer time (autopilot, like Taco Tuesday)
Caveats
- Not sure credit allocation is being done correctly in these examples. Might be double-counting or undercounting, esp on venue vs organizer
- eg for Mox (venue host) vs QTB (organizer), or Lighthaven vs Summer Camp
- Of course, not all attendee time is created equal!
- Different kinds of yield from an event
- Immediate enjoyment
- Different kinds of relationships formed
- Learnings and takeaways
- Quality-adjusted attendee-hours
- Methodology to collect this?
- Ask people how much they would pay per hour?
- Or observe how much they actually pay.
- Or observe the opportunity cost of the people present (eg higher for famous speakers)
- Ask people of ratios of time for equal “value” (1h at Manifest vs 3h at minifest)?
- And not all organizer time is created equal
- Fulltime organizers have different opportunity costs
- Eg technical staff might have much higher opportunity costs, but their taste may be important for a hackathon or technical event
- Planning logistics for an event vs day-of operations are different
- Meta events like Manifest or Summer Camp have sub-organizers
- Other costs to organize an event:
- “relationship” cost, to send invites
- money, to pay for food/venue/etc
- focus or “top idea in your head” cost
- calendar-time (not just clock time)