Monday, April 10, 2006

PyCon 2006 financial report

I am pleased to report that the financial outcome of PyCon 2006 was profitable.

The profit was about US$19000. This money will go into the PSF's general funds.

Not taken into account in the above profit figure:

  • Drew Moore arranged for the manufacture of the travel mugs and, once his costs were recouped, donated the remaining proceeds to the PSF. Wesley Chun also donated proceeds from the sale of the tutorial notes. I believe this amount is somewhere between $1000-$2000.
  • The PSF spent $6000 to help people attend PyCon by paying for their plane flights, hotel rooms, and registrations. I view this as a PSF grant program, not a conference expense, so have left it out of the calculation.

I'd like to draw attention to the amount of money saved thanks to the work and effort of the local volunteers. One example would be the power strips that were available in the ballroom and the quiet room and during the sprints. Having the hotel provide power strips would have cost about $6000 over the course of the conference; the sprints alone would have cost about $800 per day. Instead, Jeff Rush purchased $1000 worth of power strips, and the local volunteers spent hours taping them into place. Thanks to everyone who volunteered!

Also, thanks to the conference's sponsors. See the sidebar at us.pycon.org for the list of sponsors. Registration and tutorial fees alone wouldn't have covered the conference's expenses, and sponsorship was critical to helping PyCon stay profitable.

PyCon 2007 will stick to the goal of remaining low-cost while not losing money for the PSF. This year's profit means that we can spend more money to improve the conference next year.

-- Andrew Kuchling, PyCon 2006 Chair (and PyCon 2007 co-Chair)