pouët.net

As the title says. It's very clear that party organisers to everything possible to keep the prices low, but at the same time we're approaching a price level that effectively prevents people with a tighter financial situation from attending events. I think this is especially bad if it affects newcomers and in particular many younger people.

So, I'm fairly sure this isn't the first time that this topic is discussed and there won't be a perfect solution, but the situation isn't going to get better and maybe we can come up with some new ideas how to tackle this issue?

True - I was told that many Polish sceners decided not to come exactly because of the price.

https://2025.revision-party.net/tickets/tickets/

only solution is really to get more and better sponsorships (with local municipality, local governments, event venue, external supporters).

for inércia in particular small sponsorships goes a long way, last year the ticket was 30 eur to try to get people to sign up for becoming a member of associação inércia (which gives you free entrance if you pay the yearly quota which would always be cheaper then the 30eur). but we have the impression a lot of potential visitors still got scared off from it (before reading the fine print about joining the association).
our experiment for this year will be to significantly lower the cost to 5 or 10 eur and see if it helps get a bit more people curious to check out. our place rental is free through local municipality agreement, and we have a couple of sponsorships that help cover the few rentals we do for the equipment we havent accumulated through the years. main cost is usually supporting travel and sleeping arrangements for orgas and invited folks.

for big events like revision it's really complicated to get enough sponsorships to cover all the rental costs that exploded with the ukraine war energy crisis. rental costs of the hall exploded, equipment rental costs aswell.

i for one endorse tackling the issue by ending the war and restoring the economy and energy markets to affordable levels. somehow seems unlikely to happen any time soon, considering all the shitheads in power right now.

(disclaimer: the following text is only about revision, as I can't speak for other parties.)

what prost said.
we can't do more than encourage everyone who could make use of the ticket to enjoy the party to also do so.
we also know that some people are reluctant to apply for various reasons (e.g. feeling bad for not being able to pay the full price), but really, there's nothing that should make you feel like that if you're actually within the scope of the ticket.

and related to the OP: the only option to tackle this is having people and/or companies/organizations pay for the majority of the costs.
and that's what we already try to leverage as much as possible. it's called sponsoring or supporter tickets or donations.
the first one is directly tied to the economic situation in terms of how much money companies can and want to spend on such activities. the current situation is not bad, but also not ideal. the rest is indirectly tied to that... how much money is available for private persons or non-commercial organizations to pour some of it into events like demoparties.

and again speaking about revision: we know that there is sometimes the impression that we could cut large parts of our costs, but unfortunately this is simply not true (we obviously would do so else rather than increasing the ticket price)

@prost: okay, i didn't properly read the revision page i guess, providing subsidized ticket is great! but i also was thinking about the issue in the bigger scheme, maybe other parties cannot provide a discounted ticket and also expenses in general are getting higher...

Exactly what ps says. I'm not an organizer, so I have no idea how big the problems might be, which is why they've had to raise prices so much. I hope they find sponsors, which must be very difficult, and then can lower the prices again.

I think this issue has been discussed many times. For me, visiting a demoparty consists of many costs that add up to the overall expenses.

- Travel
- Accommodation
- Entrance
- Food and Drink

In my 25+ years of experience of visiting demoparties, the entrance fee is usually the lowest of those figures (depending on the country the event is held in). Sure, you can sleep at the party place and I usually try to do that if my health allows for that. Travel is the most expensive part in my visits, consisting of either Train, Plane or Gas/Electricity expenses that are way higher than than the entry and the shirt and same goes for food an drink if i do not want to survive on beer and currywurst alone.

Some clarifications about the cost structure of Revision:
Our private supporters bring in almost the same amount of revenue than our sponsors and without them it would be completely impossible to do this event. Interest in corporate sponsoring is at an all-time low and even if companies are interested, the investment they are willing to make is substantially lower than 10 years ago while costs have risen more than 100% for us.

I have put in in a substantial 5-figure sum into Revision in the past years without any expected return and some of us organizers have to use their private savings to cancel out any deficit that we have (and boy did we have some in recent years).

So yes, we also see the trend with a lot of concern and fear the day when Revision might get so expensive that it will no longer bei viable to organize.

In the meantime, we do offer the Subsidized ticket and nobody will ever look down on you for taking that option if it means that you can attend.

also, during the behind-the-scenes tour at revision for the "main organizing" part, steam (of evoke organizing, who also took part in the tour) amended one very important thing about demoparties and their size: effort (both in terms of money/costs and the regulations around the event) unfortunately do not scale linearly.

on the lower end this is a rather good thing and it means: the entry into the world of organizing demoparties (or LAN-parties or other events...) is kinda friendly. not much trouble and if you're a halfway financially sound private person you can cover most of things going wrong yourself.

in the direction to the upper end we're into events of the size of revision or beyond. costs for everything are way more huge and also other efforts for the organizing team.
covering potential deficits can be substantially dangerous.

we're willing to take a few risks, but obviously not any risk. and so we have to find a good balance between keeping prices at a reasonable level and not killing ourselves with the event (mentally, physically and financially)

and yes...as d.fox mentioned it - please don't ask the core team about the amount of money we privately poured into this event.

or maybe do and get further insights into things you don't wanna know! ;-)

The thing is, going to a party is generally expensive. It's not only the ticket fee, it's the trip (that is, even when sharing) almost the same as the entrance fee. Yes, you can bring food or get it from the market, sleep there for free. Hotels, food stands, restaurants are extras that can't count into that. So in the end it's the entrance fee and the trip.

This also means parties do everything they can - free sleeping, no obligation to buy food or drinks from them or the venue (and even hack their way around such limitations), there are plenty of people who pay up to even 10x the entrance fee to support the event and therefore help subsidize tickets for those who are in need.

i think the only way to reduce the ticket fee is by turning off the heater when it gets cold or dramatically reduce the features. Less PA, no BIG screen, etc. Do we really want that?

There are parties like Comparade that are actually free and sponsored by a few who can or want but that's more like a tinkered event. fun? yes. Mekka & Symposium 2002 was 40€ (according to Demozoo). Evoke 2024 was 40€. Everyone is doing everything they can to make it possible for everyone.

that organisers having to take personal risks is awful and the last thing i want, but it shows even more the need for solutions... i certainly will keep my eyes open for potential sponsors that i could redirect to organisers for example, maybe that's a small thing everyone can try beyond the organising teams, maybe someone else also has a smarter idea

@styx: Wasn’t aware of this situation. So: How much money do you all (the core team) privately pour into this event?

I can't speak in exact numbers for d.fox, madame and former core-team-members because we don't really make a buzz about it, but d.fox already gave a clear hint above and in general we're not talking only about a few hundred euros.

speaking about me personally: the yearly baseline is at least 1000€ per event (so in total for the lifetime of the event even without the online years it's also a 5-figure number), but usually more. and this is usually just the sum of "minor" stuff which strictly speaking would need to be covered by the TUM e.v. organization: rental car (my family has only one car, so I can't take that for a week), material, smaller equipment, etc.

and this is in general what happens a lot: smaller items we need are often bought privately and then used at the event. often these are of course things the respective owners also can use by themselves, but still it's an invest that is being made. and also the small things very quickly sum up to substantial amounts.

if I would guess how much stuff is bought or rented by orga team members for revision usage each year this also at least has a baseline of 1000€.

on top of all those things that end up in material or services, quite a few members of the orga team also donate money to the TUM e.v. organization here and there (it's at least tax-deductible then to some extend), often also high 3 or low 4 figure numbers.

so, speaking in words of our sponsoring tiers: the team itself each year at least is one larger GOLD sponsor...

I've been covering server and storage costs privately for quite some time and additionally had my company put a lot of sponsoring money and equipment donations into the event because otherwise we would not have survived. Personally, I'd put that number to about 3-4k per year without the times when we have to cover deficits, which madame and myself have done since the times of the Ultimate Meeting. Those range from a couple thousand up to about 10k in those given years.

We also had a lot of people doing the same with using corporate money to sponsor and support us without seeing a ROI in real life and we are very thankful for those who did that past and present.

Wow. I never even thanked you for that...

That's not necessary @pixtur

Like D.Fox and styx, I also occasionally cover certain expenses, which typically amount to around 500 to 1,000 euros per year. In addition, over the years I’ve regularly provided loans in the three- to four-digit range, as some costs are incurred even before the event takes place.

However, in recent years, the balance between income and expenses has become increasingly skewed. As a result, like D.Fox, I’ve covered several invoices in the three-digit range without any real expectation of being reimbursed.

We’re all willing to invest our time, energy, and money into Revision. But the rising costs in recent years have left us with no choice but to pass on a portion of these expenses to visitors through higher ticket prices — something we certainly don’t take lightly and would much prefer to avoid.

to react to pixtur and just as a remark in general: we don't disclose this information to get any additional praise or to show off or anything. also, we wouldn't do all of this if we didn't want to in some way (ok, we don't actually *want*, but we accept it and we knew before that this risk comes along with an event at the size of revision :D)

it's just to explain into more detail that raising ticket prices for us really, really is always the last resort.

So maybe the scene should create a demoparty-fund, where all sceners who can afford it put money in. Something like the supporter-tickets but permanent available and for all party-organizers. To support or even balance those private expenditures.

Haha, yeah, seeing how great “the scene” is at organizing anything, that will surely not backfire in loads of drama :D

With a job everything is possible, without everything is expensive.. Thats just how it is.

Don't understand you cynicism about this topic. Of course “the scene” can organize! You remember … Revision … last weekend?!

I thought about something like the donation-meter of Brokepoint, with the money hosted at Tastatur & Maus ev.. Don't know if its so easy to transfer it from there though.

But maybe the real financial problems only occur at the big parties, because they are so much more expensive, like Revision, Evoke etc?! Then direct funding may be the better way.

With a good paid job!

Revision is not „the scene“. What you are probably talking about is a small amount of people taking on the challenge of financing a whole community of independents - like to has always been and it mostly weighs heavily on those shoulders until they collapse. At least that has been my experience.

Didn't say that. I only talked about a way to support those who are financially burdened by organizing parties. Of course I can donate money to Tatstatur & Maus e.v., but how many parties do I support with that?