-- I'm so sorry I'm only seeing this blog post now. I'll definitely make sure to check the Forum more frequently in the future.
A few thoughts from my side: We need to consider many factors when choosing a location (and it would surprise you how few can actually meet those requirements!), e.g.:
size of ballroom and breakout rooms, number of offices and meeting rooms, number of rooms for people to stay in
accessibility from international airports
cost
safety of location and surroundings, including at night time
ability to feed 800+ people healthy and diverse vegan meals for 3.5-4 days
Why do we choose hotels over convention centers?
Because most of our attendees really enjoy the advantages:
Maximizing networking time in the mornings and evenings
Shared meals as a community, where nobody has to leave the venue and worry about buying breakfast or lunch outside
The seamless hotel infrastructure: free shuttle service to the airport, A/V service, meal functions, and lots of meeting rooms — everything is under one roof
No time loss, delays, and additional cost due to traffic / transit and little need to orient yourself in a new city, country, and language
Now let's look at the numbers:
Our cheapest tickets in the US is around $250-300. To compare: The Food & Beverage costs for us are roughly $500 per person.
We're giving out 130-150 Travel Awards (ranging from $500 to $1,600 depending on the applicants needs) to every event. We're prioritizing advocates from outside the US to travel to our US (or Canada) event. For the other regions, we're doing the opposite: We're prioritizing people from within the region.
Our overall cost per attendee for AVA is lower than what EAGs are spending (we're in close collaboration with them about this and other topics -- all trying to get better together!)
The problems we are facing are huge and I completely agree: We need to get things done. And an important way to do that is through 1. learning from each other, 2. collaborating with each other, and 3. improving collectively.
Hi everyone! This is Julia from AVA International
-- I'm so sorry I'm only seeing this blog post now. I'll definitely make sure to check the Forum more frequently in the future.
A few thoughts from my side: We need to consider many factors when choosing a location (and it would surprise you how few can actually meet those requirements!), e.g.:
Why do we choose hotels over convention centers?
Because most of our attendees really enjoy the advantages:
Now let's look at the numbers:
What's next?
Happy to chat more about this. Feel free to reach out any time!
Answering on behalf of AVA International :) I just wrote this post Close the match and enable impactful advocates to benefit from AVA! about how we would use donations from Marginal Funding Week. Thank you for setting this up and all the best to everybody who is fundraising!
Thank you, David -- See you there!
The problems we are facing are huge and I completely agree: We need to get things done. And an important way to do that is through 1. learning from each other, 2. collaborating with each other, and 3. improving collectively.
Thank you, Constance -- I appreciate the feedback and support!