Ulka Athale - 2026-05-21 16:03:15
Hi everyone - once the floor is open for discussion, you can use the Q&A box to ask a question. You can also request audio and video via Meetecho.
Brian Nisbet - 2026-05-21 16:17:34
Yes, we've seen that before.
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:24:02
One can say "over-engineering", but for most complaints the DNS working group manages to reply "yes that is why we account for that in our selection process and it is not a problem". 😉
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:27:24 €900!
😵
Robert Scheck - 2026-05-21 16:27:30
Wow!
Andreas Wittkemper - 2026-05-21 16:27:42
They might be people who are selfunding their RIPE meeting.....
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 16:28:31
to anwer this it would be very helpful to roughly know how the expenses are allocated, e.g. how much the posh dinners cost
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 16:30:01
s/might be people/are people/
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 16:30:24
re: corporate tickets: expecting a Meta employee and a 30 peoples company employee to pay the same higher pricer would be deeply unfair
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:30:43
Lars just asked for a breakdown. So... yay.
Andreas Wittkemper - 2026-05-21 16:31:29
a mild increase for cooperate tickets and same price for individuals
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:32:31
Maybe the correct answer is to buy a small village somewhere and use that for the meetings. 😅
Mick O'Donovan - 2026-05-21 16:33:28
🤣
Andreas Wittkemper - 2026-05-21 16:33:29
but nothing to remote, fiber needs to be there :)
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:33:41
https://www.cocampo.com/es/en/properties/a7b1e101-136f-4f57-b13e-0c9bba10893b/
Robert Scheck - 2026-05-21 16:33:46
Interesting idea, but maybe not in an expensive country then ;)
Andreas Wittkemper - 2026-05-21 16:34:10
Shane, you are selling ?
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:34:13
We can scout in Sofia?
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 16:34:49
We can go glamping....
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 16:35:11
But we should choose the autumn locations very carefully then
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:37:21
Apparently Burgas, Bulgaria has average nights of 11° in November. That seems not too bad? I look forward to discussing NSEC3 recommendations around the campfire.
Mick O'Donovan - 2026-05-21 16:39:31
Tbh, it would horrify me if the meeting fee jumped so much. I would have generally made a case to attend RIPE meetings in the past (previous employer) due to value for money. A week's "training" with a vendor specific course is often preferred by corporate entities versus attendance at a RIPE meeting but we all know which of the two is more valuable to the attendee and that's very much the RIPE meeting. Bringing that cost closer together by raising the meeting fee for attendees so much would almost completely negate that point and we certainly result in a nearly immediate situation where having RIPE meetings is untenable because of the lack of attendees. The value of bringing the technical community together like we do twice year has been an enormously valuable thing for me personally to harness as a method to grow my own personal development and of course that of the teams and companies that I have represented at the meetings I have been able to come to!
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 16:55:29
I wondering if one way to reduce the cost would be to drop free lunches? I'm not sure how much they cost per attendee...
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 16:56:12
I think the cost breakdown that Marco and Lars asked for could answer that.
Robert Scheck - 2026-05-21 16:56:29
Yes, I also would like to see a breakdown to figure out where the costs come from.
Brian Nisbet - 2026-05-21 16:56:50
I do think that everyone having to leave the venue and get lunch in 90 minutes would both cause a lot of potential timing disruption, but more to the point, it would really change the nature of the networking. And would also eliminate some of the hotel choices.
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 16:58:13
Raising the cost to 900 would cause much more disruption, I suspect....
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 17:04:47
(My experience as the organiser of a conference half big as RIPE is that food is a very big part of the expenses, and then many people are still unhappy about it. But it must be provided and at a reasonable cost, or else people will fragment everywhere looking for (cheaper) food and never come back on time.)
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 17:06:20
my gut feeling is that most people would be happy with a cheaper venue for the dinner, because what they really want is to chat with their friends (and some also to dance, even if I do not understand why...)
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 17:06:57
(I am raising the topic of the dinner cost and venue because it was mentioned by NCC staff some time ago, but I do not know the details.)
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:13:00
In IETF (3 meetings per year) we pay a similar fee (1140 USD including VAT, which many folks can't recover), and dificult to pay for many folks. It is a bigger meeting usually around 1.000 participants. We don't have lunch included (just the coffee breaks), and we have sufficient time to get lunch. We do that by making sure that the venue has suficcient restaurants at maximum 10 minutes walking time. Of course, this reduce the number of available venues, but also the major trouble is the size of the meeting itself, which is quite different that RIPE meetings.
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 17:15:49
Jordi: I recall that Dallas definitely didn't have anything withing 10mins walk.....but yes, +1 , no free lunches at the or f meetings
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:17:51
yes, that was *before* we had the venue selection criteria
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:20:00
we had the IETF in Madrid last summer, worked very well, record attendance and top scoring in the post-meeting survey and very cheap guest rooms. It was at the same hotel as we had RIPE in Madrid a few years ago ... I guess we can repeat it - happy to help as well.
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:25:01
One thing to consider, that's why we need to cost breakdown, some hotels provide the meeting rooms for free instead of a fee, if you pay for meals ... may be this is the reason RIPE keeps providing meals. The difference is that IETF is a so big group that probably not many hotels have the capacity to provide the meals ... or even sufficient space for meeting+lunch room.
Marco d'Itri - 2026-05-21 17:26:58
RIPE is big enough too that finding a suitable hotel is very hard nowadays (hence: conference centers)
Shane Kerr - 2026-05-21 17:27:28
Not too big for a village though!
Jen Linkova - 2026-05-21 17:28:00
Maybe we need a piece of land and build a village
Ondrej Caletka - 2026-05-21 17:28:02
(no hats) AFAIK RIPE Meeting attendance in the venue hotel is not big enough for hotels to provide the conference venue for free. I know in Prague, we asked Hilton (the IETF hotel) and they required us to commit to like 1800 roomnights to even consider renting the conference venue
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:28:13
The main difference in size is the number of simultaneuous meeting rooms. RIPE probably takes 3-4, IETF takes 20
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:29:00
Yes, let'ts have a single venue for all the meetings, IETF, RIPE, etc
Ondrej Caletka - 2026-05-21 17:29:41
Or co-host RIPE meeting with IETF? :) If they run 8 tracks, they might run two more tracks with RIPE :D
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:29:52
a big ship can make it, so we can do it in different places, otherwise, traveling to the same place every year is not so fun
Jordi Palet Martinez - 2026-05-21 17:30:12
too much IETF+RIPE, many clashes!