FOSS4G Registration Metrics

With excitement building around the 2010 conference for Free and Open Source Software for GeoSpatial, http://2010.foss4g.org, I think it is timely to share registration metrics from previous conferences (from 2006 to 2009).

Some key highlights from the metrics are:

• FOSS4G traditionally attracts ~ 50% of its delegates from the locally hosted country, and up to 75% of its delegates from the local region. This highlights the value of moving the FOSS4G conference around the world as it boosts exposure to local communities. This metric also helps predict attendance numbers based on region population densities. Small nations in the middle of the Ocean, like Australia have less delegates to draw upon, but we should see big attendance numbers coming into Barcelona this year.
• Over 80% of people heard about the conference virally, via a friend, email list, blog, etc. Despite us having contra-deals and advertisements with many geospatial magazines, only 1% heard about the conference through a magazine. Lesson for organisors: focus on viral marketing.
  
• 3/4 of the delegates are technical.
• Half the local registrations come in late, after the early bird registration. In Barcelona with expected high numbers, it might mean that the conference organisors will need to turn away late registrations.
  

I'd love to see some of these metrics built into map displays. If you are a mapping wizard, you might want to create some fancy maps with these figures. Please let me know if you do, and I'll reference them from this blog.