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Sorry about my tardiness guys - Chris told me today about the question here. I got smashed a couple of times in the floods up here and have beena trifle busy - not smashed like some other poor buggers just the inconvenience of cleaning out the house and observatory at Leyburn.
Firstly I have to give Chris a big wrap - the website is fantastic - truly professional and something to be proud of even compared to the US people that have been doing it for years. Note - everyone involved is doing this for nothing for the betterment of astro-imaging. I cant stress how rewarding and informative these conferences are - I can virtually guarantee a big improvement in your imaging and processing from attendance at the workshops and general sesions. Also a big thx to our mate Mr Sidonio who has been really helpful behind the scenes.
OK fees - Again this is being run as not for profit and any profit will go to next years attraction of internationals. Fees will be entirely dependant on sponsorship. I'll subtract the sposnsorships from the cost and divide it by a projected number of attendees to come up with attendance fees. Just day time meals (morning teat, lunch and afternoon tea is about $60 a a head, add the venue, AV equipment, international airfares and accommodation and you can see it will be a lot without sponsorship. At the moment none of our Aussie SUppliers seem interested (I do have support from Sirius Observatories and some great help with advertising from Aust S&T) but no-one else seems interested yet - it is still pretty early and hopefully they will realise the value in supporting the conference. FLI are also on board as major sponsor (fantastic) but to have no Aussies will be a enbarassing in front of the Americans especially with a large technology room adjacent to the main venue with no-one in it. Enough said on that.
I am guessing but if I can get it down to 100 dollars a day (early registration) and 125 dollars (lae rego) then I will be happy. This is my target. This is less than the US conference but they include dinner (we wont - Maccas is down the road - laugh).
So thats about the state of play with fees at the moment.
Mark Bolton
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