Comments on: Product Camp NYC – request for help

By: Stewart Rogers

Stewart Rogers — Tue, 18 May 2010 03:33:15 +0000

Paul, I completely agree. I suspect the fee will keep some people away, but on the other hand it might increase his register to attend ratio. If that is worth anything. As for the the sponsor restriction, I can't imagine they are so flush in sponsor money they can turn people away. If they were, then why the registration fee?

It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

PS. Thanks for being a pioneer of our industry.

By: Stewart Rogers

Stewart Rogers — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:33:15 +0000

By: Paul Young

Paul Young — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:45:31 +0000

I love ProductCamp. I founded Austin's version of ProductCamp and have helped at least a dozen other camp founders get off the ground in their cities, so I feel a sense of ownership around helping to define the ProductCamp "brand." IMO, when you start charging your participants you're not a ProductCamp...you've become something else. More like a traditional conference.

Early on in Austin (and in other cities I talked to), we faced this same decision. We always opted to cut back on services rather than to charge our participants. We've contained our cost significantly and run some very successful events at very low cost. I get that in NYC finding no- or low-cost venues is hard to impossible. I don't understand excluding a class of potential sponsors. The training companies have, in my experience, all been very well-behaved and we haven't had any complaints from our participants about them. They sponsor because they like to get in front of potential trainees and show them that they know their stuff. I've never had a participant come to me with a concern that a training company or consultant was selling to them in a session.

I'll be watching how this develops closely. This may be what ProductCamp evolves into, but I hope not. By keeping ProductCamp free, we've been able to broaden our tent significantly. In March we had everyone from students, to developers, to entrepreneurs, to marketing people. This diversity added to the discussion immensely, and I can say with certainty that many of them would not have come if we charged.