There has been some talk among Ignite organisers this week about how to deal with the problem of audience no shows.
We at Ignite Sheffield have been thinking about this problem as well. Ideally Ignite would be free. We don't really want to charge people to come.
Registration seems to be one way people have tried to predict and restrict audience numbers for the event. But without any money changing hands, it appears that many people are happy to not turn up, despite registering. Then you get the problem of whether to stop allowing registration at capacity. If you stop allowing registration, what happens if half the audience fails to turn up? If you over-subscribe, what if they all come!
A few Ignites have started to sell tickets and then give the proceeds to a charity. I'm starting to lean this way. There are a lot of educational charities which could use the help in this climate. You wouldn't have to charge much (£2 maybe) to make people much more likely to come if they said they would, but would you loose some of your 'its a free event' audience?
I think few people would refuse a £2 event because it wasn't free. £5 probably. £2 is just the change most people have in their pocket :-) Even poor students!
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