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The Cost of Doing Business
Jan. 6th, 2008 12:54 amDue to my volunteering in the SCA, I'm privy to lots of behind the scenes discussions. One of the things we're organizing is the big principality event, Quad War. It's a fun event and a lot of people look forward to it. I suspect there are fringers for who this is their only event. Montengarde wants to raise the bar on this already awesome event.
Myrgan Wood ran it last year and they charged (I think) $15 for a four day/three night event. Their profit for the event was a couple of bucks. I don't recall the exact number, but if it was enough to buy pizza for all the Myrgan Wood volunteers, I'd be shocked.
Because of this, we decided to raise the price. It took a bit of work to do that too. We had to convince the principality. We had to convince the site owners - who had very real concerns that they'd take a reputation hit on it. For the record, the amount they take in for allowing us to use their property has not changed. The new price? $25 per person. For a five day event. Kids 17 and under are allowed to attend for free.
And every time we talked about this, somebody pointed out the (sadly) obvious: Someone was going to bitch and moan about the extra $10. We like to say it's because it's the SCA, but frankly every group like this will have some character bitch about it. Doesn't matter if you bash each other with rattan, reenact the civil war, or trade beanie babies, there's always that person who want's it to stay the same (or can't understand why it's not free).
It finally happened today on the Principality Yahoo! group (and my belief is that if there is one person with the balls to bring it up on a discussion group, there's another ten whispering about it behind the scenes). A discussion ensued, thankfully some sane voices defended us. It's nice when you don't have to do it yourself. The other side is less likely to think it's a knee-jerk defense.
But really, Quad War is a camping event, with minimal facilities and the nearest population center of real size is Lloydminster, a half hour's drive north.
What do we do with that money? Well we have to pay the site owners. That's $10/head. Then we have to pay for any consumables used. We have to ship in water and fuel for the showers. We have 18 pit toilets on site and they need to be emptied by a professional septic tank company. There's a thousand little things that need to be bought and paid for - and while each one by themselves doesn't cost much, it all adds up eventually.
It was argued that because all the labour for this was voluntary, that it should be free. Sorry, but I might be mowing the lawn out there the week before, but that doesn't mean I'm paying for the gasoline to run the mowers.
Any business we do use has to come from Saskatchewan instead of Alberta because the site is actually in Saskatchewan and the province has all kinds of petty, yet expensive, rules about who can do business there.
It's the same weekend as the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, so we're competing for services with that.
Afterwards, as a Principality event, we have to forward30% 60% of the profits to principality. And 10% of the profits to Kingdom. That's assuming we'll even make a profit. We're planning on 500 people arriving this year (it was 450 last year), but that number could be cut in half if it's pouring rain.
After that's all been paid, we (the Barony) have decided to donate 1/2 of the profits to Borealis Specifically as seed money for Quad War in 2009.
Finally, we're making this all known in advance and we plan of showing all the financials on the web site. You want to check up on us? Knock yourself out.
So if you think we're just trying to gouge people, think again.
And really, how far does 25 bucks go these days. It's rare that I pay that little when eating out at a restaurant, though being a single professional, I have a bit of discretionary income.
Movies cost about $12, so this would be roughly the equivalent of two movies. A provincial camp ground costs $20 bucks per night. And this event will be for four nights.
Last year, Quad War cost me about $100 for gasoline (I had to fill up the tank twice to get there and back). I paid another $100 for food (some to Tayaha for taking care of some of my meals, some for my own snackage, two restaurant visits and my booze). Assorted miscellaneous expenses amounted to another $40 or so and the site fee of $15. That adds up to $255. Another $10 on top of that is not going to kill you. If your finances are so poor that you can't manage to save up an extra ten bucks - with seven months warning - then you shouldn't be going at all. Not for the ten bucks, for the $265. That was for Quad War 2007. For Quad War 2006 I had to buy all of my camping equiptment, which I'm not including. I know people who spent a lot more. Several factors of magnitude more. Given the increasing price of fuel, I fully expect to be paying $120 for gasoline, which makes the extra $10 in site fee increase look silly.
People should really look at what they're getting for their money, instead of freaking out when a price increase moves an event from "insanely cheap" to "just-sort-of-bonkers cheap".
Myrgan Wood ran it last year and they charged (I think) $15 for a four day/three night event. Their profit for the event was a couple of bucks. I don't recall the exact number, but if it was enough to buy pizza for all the Myrgan Wood volunteers, I'd be shocked.
Because of this, we decided to raise the price. It took a bit of work to do that too. We had to convince the principality. We had to convince the site owners - who had very real concerns that they'd take a reputation hit on it. For the record, the amount they take in for allowing us to use their property has not changed. The new price? $25 per person. For a five day event. Kids 17 and under are allowed to attend for free.
And every time we talked about this, somebody pointed out the (sadly) obvious: Someone was going to bitch and moan about the extra $10. We like to say it's because it's the SCA, but frankly every group like this will have some character bitch about it. Doesn't matter if you bash each other with rattan, reenact the civil war, or trade beanie babies, there's always that person who want's it to stay the same (or can't understand why it's not free).
It finally happened today on the Principality Yahoo! group (and my belief is that if there is one person with the balls to bring it up on a discussion group, there's another ten whispering about it behind the scenes). A discussion ensued, thankfully some sane voices defended us. It's nice when you don't have to do it yourself. The other side is less likely to think it's a knee-jerk defense.
But really, Quad War is a camping event, with minimal facilities and the nearest population center of real size is Lloydminster, a half hour's drive north.
What do we do with that money? Well we have to pay the site owners. That's $10/head. Then we have to pay for any consumables used. We have to ship in water and fuel for the showers. We have 18 pit toilets on site and they need to be emptied by a professional septic tank company. There's a thousand little things that need to be bought and paid for - and while each one by themselves doesn't cost much, it all adds up eventually.
It was argued that because all the labour for this was voluntary, that it should be free. Sorry, but I might be mowing the lawn out there the week before, but that doesn't mean I'm paying for the gasoline to run the mowers.
Any business we do use has to come from Saskatchewan instead of Alberta because the site is actually in Saskatchewan and the province has all kinds of petty, yet expensive, rules about who can do business there.
It's the same weekend as the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, so we're competing for services with that.
Afterwards, as a Principality event, we have to forward
After that's all been paid, we (the Barony) have decided to donate 1/2 of the profits to Borealis Specifically as seed money for Quad War in 2009.
Finally, we're making this all known in advance and we plan of showing all the financials on the web site. You want to check up on us? Knock yourself out.
So if you think we're just trying to gouge people, think again.
And really, how far does 25 bucks go these days. It's rare that I pay that little when eating out at a restaurant, though being a single professional, I have a bit of discretionary income.
Movies cost about $12, so this would be roughly the equivalent of two movies. A provincial camp ground costs $20 bucks per night. And this event will be for four nights.
Last year, Quad War cost me about $100 for gasoline (I had to fill up the tank twice to get there and back). I paid another $100 for food (some to Tayaha for taking care of some of my meals, some for my own snackage, two restaurant visits and my booze). Assorted miscellaneous expenses amounted to another $40 or so and the site fee of $15. That adds up to $255. Another $10 on top of that is not going to kill you. If your finances are so poor that you can't manage to save up an extra ten bucks - with seven months warning - then you shouldn't be going at all. Not for the ten bucks, for the $265. That was for Quad War 2007. For Quad War 2006 I had to buy all of my camping equiptment, which I'm not including. I know people who spent a lot more. Several factors of magnitude more. Given the increasing price of fuel, I fully expect to be paying $120 for gasoline, which makes the extra $10 in site fee increase look silly.
People should really look at what they're getting for their money, instead of freaking out when a price increase moves an event from "insanely cheap" to "just-sort-of-bonkers cheap".
