Hidden Earth Stomp!

[badger]

some good points made, me being a person of maturer (is that a word) years prefer a good rock band. but the basher/esp scenario is ok. theproblem I think from some stomps at HE is the hall is to far away from the bar, and cavers being very tight do not it would seem to spend anymore wonger over the weekend apart from on the ale. so what ever happens the stomp needs to be close to the bar and free entry.
my opinion for what its worth.
badger from way on down souf

 

[seamoose]

Free stomp (ie. absorbed into the overall ticket price) sounds like the way forward as a few other posters have mentioned.

We now do that with Eldon stomps and it gets more people moving from the bar into the stomp room!

 

[menacer]

and cavers being very tight do not it would seem to spend anymore wonger

Especially by paying for something that upto/roughly ish 50% may not care for.

Honestly, I wouldn't  expect you to pay to run a "disco" that you may have no interest in attending.

That said I appreciate how lucky we are to have - what I consider - a fantastic disco run for free. I would never take that for granted.

If the demand for stomps is as high as the survey is reflecting, it should surely have its costs covered by those attending it.
Has it ever not broken even in the past?

I appreciate the figures may be miniscule, some may suggest only 50p or less  extra per ticket to absorb these costs, but id personally rather that went to Ghar Parau or something I supported, than a rock band  I have no interest in.

 

[kay]

and cavers being very tight do not it would seem to spend anymore wonger

Especially by paying for something that upto/roughly ish 50% may not care for.

Honestly, I wouldn't  expect you to pay to run a "disco" that you may have no interest in attending.

That said I appreciate how lucky we are to have - what I consider - a fantastic disco run for free. I would never take that for granted.

If the demand for stomps is as high as the survey is reflecting, it should surely have its costs covered by those attending it.
Has it ever not broken even in the past?

I appreciate the figures may be miniscule, some may suggest only 50p or less  extra per ticket to absorb these costs, but id personally rather that went to Ghar Parau or something I supported, than a rock band  I have no interest in.

The price of Hidden Earth covers a lot of things that an individual may not participate in -  eg the two thirds of the lectures you can't get to because you're in a different lecture, ( never mind the lectures you're not interested in),  the Club stands in the Trade Hall,  the art, video salons and all the competitions (although prizes are sponsored, all other expenses are covered by the event as a whole). I don't mind covering the Stomp as well, even though I don't go to it.

The only things you pay for extra are T shirts and dinners, and food and drink, both of which are expensive enough for that to be fair, and camping, which doesn't cost as much, but saves an awful lot of money compared with B&B.

 

[cap n chris]

The price of Hidden Earth covers a lot of things that an individual may not participate in -  eg ....the lectures

Correct me if I'm wrong but the lecturers don't get paid.

The ticket price for Hidden Earth covers the cost of the venue, not the presentations.

Hiring in a band is an additional cost, over and beyond the general cost of running Hidden Earth; therefore people attending the stomp with a band on stage should be the people who pay for the privilege of watching it (just like those attending the evening meal), not the general cavers who have no interest in such a thing.  Ten shirtless people flailing around in a huge hall with a live band shouldn't be subsidised by several hundred people in a bar having a nice social get-together.

 

[kay]

The price of Hidden Earth covers a lot of things that an individual may not participate in -  eg ....the lectures

Correct me if I'm wrong but the lecturers don't get paid.

The ticket price for Hidden Earth covers the cost of the venue, not the presentations.

The lecturers don't get paid, although they do get a discount, but if Hidden Earth weren't running 3 lecture streams in parallel, it wouldn't need such a large venue and it wouldn't need to purchase 3 sets of AV equipment. And everyone is sharing in the cost of this, even if they only attend one or two lectures over the whole weekend.

 

[cap n chris]

People attending (and paying for) Hidden Earth might indeed not attend a single lecture; whether or not they do is neither here nor there - their ticket price pays for the event. What they make of it is up to them. Hiring in a band is most definitely an additional cost. If a significant proportion of attendees specifically wish to attend a live gig then it would seem reasonable for them to pay an additional sum, over and beyond the cost of their standard ticket in order to offset the cost of hiring in a band, surely?

 

[kay]

Hiring in a band is most definitely an additional cost.

I'm not sure I agree. Is Hidden Earth simply a set of lectures? Or is the stomp and all the other ancillary activities part of the event? In which case hiring a live band isn't an additional cost, it's part of the cost of staging the event. All purely personal opinion of course.

 

[cap n chris]

If additional (ancillary) elements are, as you claim. not a burdensome extra cost (i.e. drain on the net donation going forward to Ghar Parau) then why not augment Hidden Earth with a firework show, goodie bags with slices of cake to take home, car stickers and whatever else is viewed as a standard part of the event?

"I'm not sure I agree".

I am sure I agree.

The acid test is this:

Do you want a Hidden Earth T-shirt? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to attend the Conference evening meal? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to use the camping facilties? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to attend the Stomp?

 

[Bottlebank]

I'm with Kay, I view Hidden Earth as a social event, as do many others. I may attend a couple of lectures but I see lectures as an ancilliary element.

If you don't believe this drop admission prices by a tenner and charge a pound for each lecture and see what that does to attendance figures!

I'd like to see a decent band included in the price, and to be honest I'd have the band and bar in the same room, that'd ensure a decent turnout. If the odd miserable git doesn't like music let them go outside, or to a different room. This isn't so extreme, smokers already do it.

Following Chris's logic:

Do you want to attend a lecture? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.

 

[kay]

If additional (ancillary) elements are, as you claim. not a burdensome extra cost (i.e. drain on the net donation going forward to Ghar Parau) then why not augment Hidden Earth with a firework show, goodie bags with slices of cake to take home, car stickers and whatever else is viewed as a standard part of the event?

Why not? - if it brought in enough extra people to cover the cost.

The acid test is this:

Do you want a Hidden Earth T-shirt? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to attend the Conference evening meal? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to use the camping facilities? Yes? You'll need to pay for it.
Do you want to attend the Stomp?

Do you want to visit the Trade Hall?
Do you want to have a go on the BCA "cave"?
Do you want your club to have a  stand?
Do you want to enter one of the competitions?

All of these have some associated costs which could be charged for.

The acid test is not comparison with other things that you have to or don't have to pay for separately, the acid test, if you are focusing on the donation to Ghar Parau, is whether the overall profit would be greater with the Stomp paid for separately or as part of the entry fee.

 

[mrodoc]

Might as well join the discussion. Bottlebank seems to be of the opinion that you can socialise in a bar with a band playing. The answer is no and it has always been thus. I may be of pensionable age but even when I was a student it was extremely annoying to go somewhere to an event where you couldn't move somewhere quiet for a chat and a bar seems the obvious answer. I like live music (still go to  concerts and festivals) but you definitely need a quiet area. At HE this year it was a problem that the disco and bar were so close. Perhaps we should go back to what used to happen namely a ceilidh and a stomp (I am thinking back to the late 70's and 80's)! So have loud music we can bop to but keep make sure there is a quiet zone as well.

BTW in the list of stuff Chris mentioned as give aways there are couple of good ideas eg promotional car stickers. Perhaps HE organizers could think about that for next year. Also some of us do go to lectures - all the ones I attended were well supported.

 

[mrodoc]

Mrs. G. thinks I have been hard on the arrangements at HE this year and felt that they  were fine so I will retract that bit so I don't get a  :spank:!

 

[Peter Burgess]

You can go to a live music event or disco anywhere. Where else can you go to a caving conference and be educated/entertained by stories of cavers and their daring do's?

Don't forget what the primary purpose of a conference is. That's what the core cost should cover.

 

[Peter Burgess]

Oh, and Disco or Band is neither here nor there for me so I haven't voted. The social element of the event makes the weekend of great value to the caving scene, but people socialise in a variety of ways, music and drinking being just one, albeit very significant.

 

[kay]

You can go to a live music event or disco anywhere. Where else can you go to a caving conference and be educated/entertained by stories of cavers and their daring do's?

Don't forget what the primary purpose of a conference is. That's what the core cost should cover.

The primary purpose of a conference includes "networking" and most organisers of conferences try to facilitate that.

I spent a large chunk of my working life attending various scientific conferences. The cost was (obviously) greater than Hidden Earth, but always included tea and coffee, and lunch. If the conference lasted more than a single day, it usually included some sort of evening reception. And the bigger conferences, certainly the international ones, included accommodation, dinners in the evening, they often had a free afternoon with various outings arranged, and there might be a reduced fee for partners covering food and accommodation and some activities.

It would be interesting to know - if the cost of Hidden Earth were reduced to, say, ?18 per day but you had to pay extra for the stomp, and a small fee (say 50p) for each competition you entered, etc ... so that the costs covered lectures and nothing else at all ....  would you still go?

Or, if you don't go, would you be more likely to if the cost were lower but only included lectures?

(Figures from the top of my head - I have no idea what the Stomp etc costs when spread over all people attending. But I imagine the largest cost by far would be the hire of the venue)

 

[cap n chris]

If additional (ancillary) elements are, as you claim. not a burdensome extra cost (i.e. drain on the net donation going forward to Ghar Parau) then why not augment Hidden Earth with a firework show, goodie bags with slices of cake to take home, car stickers and whatever else is viewed as a standard part of the event?

Why not? - if it brought in enough extra people to cover the cost.

The acid test is not comparison with other things that you have to or don't have to pay for separately, the acid test, if you are focusing on the donation to Ghar Parau, is whether the overall profit would be greater with the Stomp paid for separately or as part of the entry fee.

So which is it?

On the one hand you seem to be saying it's OK to have ancillary, non-core events so long as they bring in sufficient additional (i.e. secondary ticketing revenue) money to cover their cost...

.... but on the other you seem to be saying it's OK to include ancillary, non-core events in a single entry fee provided you end up selling more tickets than you might otherwise sell (probably impossible to determine unless you compare parallel universes) and as a result cover the additional costs incurred by staging them.

 

[cavegirl99]

The trouble with charging extra for the Stomp is that you will get loads of people who do want to go to it, but don't want to pay.  It means you need volunteers to man the door and what has happened in the past is that loads of people just loiter outside until the door staff get fed up trying to stop people without tickets getting in.  This means a poor attendance at the start of the stomp.
I think you get better attendance if the stomp is free, even if that does load the ticket price for people that aren't interested in it.
I agree that it is important to also have a quiet area for people who aren't interested in the music.
And as it is impossible to please everyone all the time, either sticking with a disco, where a variety of music can be played over the evening, or alternating between a band and disco is probably the best bet.

 

[Peter Burgess]

It seems quite clear to me that if enough people to make it a success attend a music event and pay for it separately, then those that do so are probably happy with the status quo. A few more people may attend if the cost was subsidied by those that stay away, but if the events are patronised, those that patronise it enjoy themselves, and the event pays for itself, then what precisely is the problem? The only issue as originally raised is what kind of music event should it be.

 

[cap n chris]

The problem is that I know of people who enjoy attending Hidden Earth and yet who would refrain from going if they knew they had no choice but to pay a higher ticket price which was subsidising a stomp which they had no interest in. They would miss out, the overall take would be less, fewer people would attend etc. etc..

Personally I'm all for the stomp (having played many in the past in a band, including at least two Hidden Earths), but would not attend any longer as my interest in live music has declined. A disco (free at the point of delivery), however, IS something I would tolerate!