Here’s the thread that petered out…
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I’d love to get that started back up, it would be great to meet you guys whose work I admire so much.
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Yes, I know someone.
People with consistent track records putting together stuff like this at this scale are going to want a couple hundred dollars to even talk about it, though.
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I put together a conference a few years ago (with a business partner) and have done this sort of event planning in a prior life. It’s a lot of work and since most of us aren’t sponsored by their job, people aren’t willing to pay as much. I’d love to do it, but not sure of there would be enough interest (from Glowforgers) to draw in the sponsors to cover it.
Edited to add: I think at this point it would need to come from GF working with the partners they’d like. Otherwise, maybe more of a meetup with some of us running workshops voluntarily. Perhaps in partnership with a makerspace.
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Was that a Freudian slip? 
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Most likely. It was a really good conference, but we totally lost money.
But I was also mid-tour of URI with my kids and my niece, so also a bit distracted and on my phone. 
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That’s another part of it, if you’re going for a cover your expenses at least approach.
You can lowball the fee to get more people. But getting more people makes the logistics even more difficult. Or go for a higher fee and try to capture 1-2% of the GF owner market. Less people making the logistics a bit simpler.
In the end, whether it was $100 or $300, that’s only a small portion of the expenses involved in attending. Most people are going to incur travel fees like gas, flights, lodging, etc. that will quickly surpass the cost of the conference making it a smaller drop in the bucket.
A heat map from GF might be beneficial in the planning. Especially in these beginning stages where you don’t actually have a conference. That could give you a starting point of where to maybe host it to minimize travel impact on people. That could be drilled further down to existing makerfaires that you could piggyback on and enhance the overall value.
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Just to toss my .02 in, when I was working for a vinyl sign shop as an independent, I attended a conference on my own dime but under the title of the shop. I went to the NBM Show because they have “WrapsCon” (apparently only at a few stops in the tour 
) and I thought I’d be able to see some new tricks to help me/the shop. This tradeshow is perfect because of the vendors and trades. Before the GF I was aware of Johnson Plastics, Laserbits, etc because of this show. It also introduced me to other ideas of doing/making things with the tools I already had rather than buying bigger machines.
So long story short, this tradeshow would be a perfect piggyback for @dan and the team to look into.
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i think piggybacking on a makerfaire makes a ton of sense. it would give people extra incentive to come. if you knew you could go to a good makerfaire as well as get the GF convention on the same travel cost (plus maybe an extra night or two of hotel), that makes it more financially palatable.
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A&E Magazine usually sends free tickets for the NBM show to subscribers too. But I agree it’s a great show to be paired with - lasers are a part of their target delivery and market.
And …
Ditto. Either is good - we might find the MakerFaire overlap with the GF customer base is greater than the NBM customer base.
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and GF already has had a strong presence at the main maker faires.
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I think that goes kind of without saying though I can’t say whether @Jules would or could do a keynote. Not saying she wouldn’t or couldn’t but there are some super smart and helpful people I have known through my life that would die if they had to stand before 150 folk and speak. We’d have to adapt to what she was willing to do more than expecting her to adapt to it.
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I could see a possibility that a marketing group tat could sell a range of the stuff we are making could create enough money to pay all the bills, and help out some of us not as much marketing geniuses as others. folk would not have to donate all the proceeds from the work, but because they were producing value a portion of that value could cover a lot of activity.
The thing is, I don’t know if there are enough people that a low fee would matter. How many of us are there? Many can’t/won’t travel regardless of costs. Others won’t be able to afford to get to wherever we are. I think that was more my concern. A generic laser con might be more feasible in terms of numbers.
But unless GF is bankrolling, I still think something small (love the idea of piggybacking on MakerFaire) with a few low-cost sponsors and a low-key vibe would be relatively easy and inexpensive to pull off. If you ask for a low fee for inclusion in the swag bag and sample goodies for each attendee, they don’t need to pay for travel, etc., and so having bigger numbers is less important for their ROI.
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the other benefit of that is that many vendors who could be beneficial to GF owners would likely already have a presence at the maker faire. even if they don’t actively participate in the GF event, they might be willing to donate swag since they’d be bringing a big pile of it to the maker faire anyway. so a few more things that they can contribute would be easy. and already being there might encourage some to stay and participate.
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Definitely!
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This is something we’ve long wished for, if only to meet you all in person! We haven’t been able to find time or budget for it yet, but it definitely hasn’t gone away either.
If anyone does a regional meetup, please do let us know so that we can help sponsor in some way!
–dan
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Judging by forum accounts, somewhere just over 10,000.
Think 10,000 was just about the pre-order amount? Sounds vaguely familiar at least. But that’s what I based my 1-2% figure from. I’m reasonably confident a ton of people on Facebook have never signed up for the forums as well.
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