Food at Pycon

  • Thread starter Laura Creighton
  • Start date
L

Laura Creighton

I thought that the food provided at PyCon last year was awful. Now
I find out it cost us approximately half the budget of PyCon, at
74$ a head. I think that this is shameful. But Aahz thinks the
convenience factor, for those people who are willing to eat the
food -- outweighs the cost factor. It looks as if if is coming in
at 70$ a head this time. I'd rather have the 70$. But Aahz doesn't
want to open this discussion unless I can find 10 people who aren't
interested in the lunches.

Can those of you who already know that you aren't going to eat the
lunches if they are the same as last time, drop me a piece of mail?
I've been away on vacation, and my mail backlog is tremendous, so I
don't have time to read c.l.py at the present.

thanks very much,
Laura


------- Forwarded Message

Return-Path: (e-mail address removed)
Delivery-Date: Sat Nov 1 21:40:49 2003
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 15:40:47 -0500
From: Aahz <[email protected]>
To: Laura Creighton <[email protected]>
Cc: "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Food or not food?

So, they go downstairs to the food centre, just a short elevator ride,
buy lunch, and eat it upstairs. People who want to do this, have the
option.

That's what I did one sprint day. It took a lot longer than I would
have wanted, and the things that were most appetizing to me ended up
costing me something like $10.

Tell you what: since this seems to be an issue dear to your heart, why
don't you post to c.l.py or c.l.py.announce and ask? If you can get at
least ten people who say they don't want to pay for conference-provided
lunches (and who intend to go to PyCon), we can re-open the discussion
here. Otherwise, I think the convenience factor is too high.

One idea we can definitely do to cut the cost: assume only 75% of people
will eat conference-provided food.
- --
Aahz ([email protected]) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code."
- --Bill Harlan

------- End of Forwarded Message
 
A

Aahz

[p&e]

I thought that the food provided at PyCon last year was awful. Now I
find out it cost us approximately half the budget of PyCon, at 74$ a
head. I think that this is shameful. But Aahz thinks the convenience
factor, for those people who are willing to eat the food -- outweighs
the cost factor. It looks as if if is coming in at 70$ a head this
time. I'd rather have the 70$. But Aahz doesn't want to open this
discussion unless I can find 10 people who aren't interested in the
lunches.

I'm saddened that you chose not to write a balanced post about the
subject, so here is some additional information for people:

The money Laura refers to covers three days of food. It's not just
lunch, it's also breakfast pastry/coffee plus two coffee breaks (with
cookies and sodas). The money includes tax and service charges. Yes,
it's overpriced, but it's a pretty standard markup for conference food.

The downside of not providing the food is that it's much less convenient
to meet people during lunch if you have to forage. That applies less to
people who already know lots of people in the Python community, of
course.

Another thing that Laura didn't mention is that we ran into a schedule
crunch last year. With additional time, we can certainly make more of an
effort this year to provide food that people will eat. We're also
planning to order less food to accomodate those who won't eat conference
food, which will result in less cost for everyone.
 
W

Wade Leftwich

Laura Creighton said:
I thought that the food provided at PyCon last year was awful. Now
I find out it cost us approximately half the budget of PyCon, at
74$ a head.
[ snip ] ...

Well, for 3 days of lunches, coffee and muffins, soda and snacks, $74
is a pretty cheap catering price. Maybe it just seems high in the
context of a remarkably cost-effective conference.

I thought the lunchboxes were OK, and I would not want to take time
away from the conference to find my own food.

Salon.com has recently noted a trend of alpha geeks going on the
Atkins diet, so maybe next year we will need fewer chocolate chip
cookies and more pork chops.

-- Wade Leftwich
Ithaca, NY
 
K

Kendall Clark

I'm saddened that you chose not to write a balanced post about the
subject, so here is some additional information for people:

Balanced or not, I have to agree with Laura. The food at PyCon earlier
this year was awful, especially for those of us who are
vegetarian. While, as a vegetarian, I'm used to getting treated like a
2nd class citizen at geek conferences, the vegetarian options at PyCon
were terrible. Of course, this is just about the only bad thing I can
say about the conference, but since the subject has come up...

Now I live in DC, near to the conference site, and will certainly be
at the next one; I'd appreciate the chance to not subsidize other
people's food consumption which I find morally problematic. Or, if I
do have to subsidize them, I'd at least like to have something I can
eat which is tasty and inoffensive.

Best,
Kendall Clark
 
A

Aahz

Salon.com has recently noted a trend of alpha geeks going on the
Atkins diet, so maybe next year we will need fewer chocolate chip
cookies and more pork chops.

....or at least veggies with blue cheese dressing. While the sentiment
is appreciated, one problem with protein is that it's *more* expensive.
 
A

Aahz

Balanced or not, I have to agree with Laura. The food at PyCon earlier
this year was awful, especially for those of us who are
vegetarian. While, as a vegetarian, I'm used to getting treated like a
2nd class citizen at geek conferences, the vegetarian options at PyCon
were terrible. Of course, this is just about the only bad thing I can
say about the conference, but since the subject has come up...

Well, given the forcefulness of Laura's non-vegetarian comments, I doubt
you can fairly claim that you were being treated as a second-class
citizen this time. ;-)
Now I live in DC, near to the conference site, and will certainly be
at the next one; I'd appreciate the chance to not subsidize other
people's food consumption which I find morally problematic. Or, if I
do have to subsidize them, I'd at least like to have something I can
eat which is tasty and inoffensive.

More seriously, I think almost everyone who goes to a conference ends up
subsidizing some activity that others want and they don't. We can
certainly make more effort to accomodate a variety of food needs, but
given the wide variety of needs that I'm aware of, I doubt we'll cover
everything.

Here's what we probably have to deal with in dietary restrictions:
low-fat, low-carb, vegetarian, vegan, kosher, wheat-free. That doesn't
even count the people who dislike what we provide but don't actually have
a "food need" (like Laura).

But I think that providing food is overall a social good for a conference
because of the convenience factor in promoting conversation.
 

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