Well put. The way I've been thinking of this is in terms of incentives. My context is organising regional and national sports competitions, albeit in a niche sport in a small country.
As an organising committee, I have argued, we should be minimising (to the extent things are within our control) the incentive people have to do the wrong thing. This incentive is usually financial. Historically, entry fee refunds have always been at the committee's discretion but since covid, we've been very liberal in exercising that discretion. We haven't asked for proof of covid-in-the-household, taking it on trust; even a vague "I can't attend due to unforeseen circumstances" has been refunded. We don't think this has been abused, but of course different events will have different attendee attitudes.
Unfortunately, travel and accommodation are completely outside of our control, and tend to be an order of magnitude greater in cost to attendees than our meagre entry fees. Conferences do have the advantage of hotel block bookings with often quite liberal cancellation policies, but we're not big enough to bargain for those. I do wonder whether those industries' race to the bottom with cheap sticker prices, in exchange for non-cancellability, will have to evolve.
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Date: 2023-09-01 08:19 am (UTC)As an organising committee, I have argued, we should be minimising (to the extent things are within our control) the incentive people have to do the wrong thing. This incentive is usually financial. Historically, entry fee refunds have always been at the committee's discretion but since covid, we've been very liberal in exercising that discretion. We haven't asked for proof of covid-in-the-household, taking it on trust; even a vague "I can't attend due to unforeseen circumstances" has been refunded. We don't think this has been abused, but of course different events will have different attendee attitudes.
Unfortunately, travel and accommodation are completely outside of our control, and tend to be an order of magnitude greater in cost to attendees than our meagre entry fees. Conferences do have the advantage of hotel block bookings with often quite liberal cancellation policies, but we're not big enough to bargain for those. I do wonder whether those industries' race to the bottom with cheap sticker prices, in exchange for non-cancellability, will have to evolve.