I'll try Houghy. My biggest drama is tying it in with the period all those pesky undergrads arent on campus. If I dont go this way we will have to distribute hotel costs at a decent sort of hotel. Big money with meals.
I have negotiated with uni to take a percentage at the end after costs making it feasible - four fifths of nothing is nothing right?
Pat Pearl is on the Astrofest committe and he comes out to my property at leyburn. I'll have a talk with him.
If by some miracle I get the type of support they get over here from industry then a hotel becomes feasible making a time shift to maybe the week before Astrofest possible. It would be perfect as I am sure our visitors would prefer a visit to one of our biggest star parties as well.
OK i'll partially spill the beans - I prefer to have it sposnsored by Aussie companies if I can - I have many friends in the businesses in Sydney and Brisbane and wouldnt dream of bringing in anyone else if I didnt have to. Dont read too much into this but i think an Aussie conference sponsored by Aussie businesses is the way to go. You would not believe the support they get over here. I know we cant compete on their scale but apart from fees from the technical displays and sponsorships - I just saw them give away an Apogee CCD worth $4k, an ST8300, An FLI filter wheel, Planewave discounts worth several grand, full copies of the CCDWare suite, copies of the Sky 6, 2 copies of CS5 etc etc as door prizes !!!! BTW I didnt even win a free coffee
I've been working on this for about 18 months as some will tell you but the key things in getting it to work were the guest speakers (done)so now onto organisaion.
M