Dear Harry, Peter and all,
I like Peter's suggestion:
- It might be worthwhile having two participant numbers: one for the full
fee paying participants (or equivalent) and one for all participants - use the first in the income and the second in the costs. This may be complicating things too much and I'd be interested in feedback as to whether those numbers differ significantly.
No problem (in principle) with the two numbers. But having the larger number (i.e. including the students) in the costs might be not that easy since very often the student don't get a copy of the proceedings, don' get access to the conference dinner. In most cases they just get a badge, some cups of coffee etc. Thus they don't contribute too much to the costs but in turn they don't provide too much income. Of course this differs from conference to conference.
A further feature but further complication, too, would be to add one or more columns which would force the organizer to see what would happen if only a fraction of the hoped-for number of attendees actually appears. This could even be done automatically.
In a way, this suggestion is already incorporated: Since the system calculates the beak even number you may easily see what happens: If you expect, for example, 50 full paying participants then your surplus might be quite high. And the break even number might show up in this case as 33 (figures are taken from an event which has already been calculated be the new sheet). Thus, continuing that example: if only 2/3 of the intended people would actually appear then the organisors would still be on the safe side. However, if less than 2/3 would be coming then the organisors would be in trouble.
Thanks for the comments received til now whioch demonstrate a. That the new sheet can be used very easily b. That there was an apparent need for it.
I continue to collect comments and I would finally discuss it in Bangkok where we might want to test some additional proposals on the spot.
Best wishes Otto