With the late fee being $1000 if you don't pay 2 weeks before the meeting and the standard fee of $875, it can be a significant part of the overall cost - even at $750, that's equivalent to 4 nights hotel in some places or airfare. And, as Tom pointed out, we're also getting hit with VAT in some situations, so the meeting fee is not at all an insignificant portion of the overall costs. Getting travel approval 6 weeks before a meeting is rare where I am right now. In some cases, I'm actually paying the airfare myself so I don't end up in a middle seat in the back of the plane. And, nowadays, some of us can't be sure we'll have a sponsor by meeting time. In the case that I don't, I register for a One day pass. So, we can say too bad for my company for not approving travel early, but it's double edged sword in that if it's costing more to send me to meetings, they're less likely to want to send me to meetings. And, right now, our travel is highly scrutinized up the chain. And, I don't think I'm a one off.
Per Ted's comment, there's not a particularly easy solution for sustainability. I don't think anyone wants us to become a membership organization, but for the larger companies, spending 10s of thousands of dollars to send people to IETF is pretty on par with what they pay for memberships in other SDOs, particularly since they aren't sending people to IETF meetings every 4-6 weeks, so overall travel costs aren't nearly as significant to participate. So, our model does allow those larger companies to have more influence. We've seen the impact of that influence in some WG consensus decisions.
Regards,
Mary.
On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 11:01 AM John Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <CALx6S35UeMeM3QUYuX1zoFJvgwyk8kF3OBeCwkCqcvryx0q+Fg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> you write:
>Maybe there should be a "non-sponsored" registration tier with a discount
>to help make it affordable for the little guys.
This question has come up a lot of times before. Unless you happen to
live where the meeting is, travel costs are generally a lot higher
than the registration fee. We already have graduated fees, an early
bird fee if you register early, a one day fee that's about half the
early bird fee, and a much lower fee for students.
I gather that at the Bangkok IETF there was an arrangement for local
attendees, and the IETF chair has always had the ability to waive
someone's fee when needed.
