The People (all 139 of them) have spoken.

If you missed the survey, sorry, but feel free to comment and let us know. Here's the result, and here's what we're doing in response.

One note. I'm unbelievably surprised by the answers, and that there were no "Landslides". I have a post about some of those thoughts at our company blog here.

Question 1: There are basically three choices in front of us for handling speakers and food/beverage. Select the scenario that you think makes the most sense and would still be an event you'd attend.

Results:

• 28.8% wanted to leave 360|flex as it was. Speakers get their registration comped, but must pay for their own airfare and hotel. Food and drink flow freely.
• 36.7% are ok with lunch only and giving a little something to the speakers. In our case that'll have to be Hotel. (I'll explain at the end).
• 34.5% wanted no food at all. 100% of speaker expenses covered, everyone eats and drinks on their own.
  

So why are we only covering Hotel? 1) Partial comping was the (barely) winner. 2) Hotel is something we can manage, and the price is the same for each speaker. We don't have the man power or bandwidth to manage airfare from every corner of the globe. Also, how would/should we answer, "Can I just get a check, I'm driving myself", Then what about local speakers? Do they get nothing or a made up number for fake airfare? This way even if they're local, they can enjoy a few days out of the house.

Question 2: Location, location, location. Metro/downtown areas cost quite a bit more than areas near the airport or in the suburbs. How important is it to you that the conference be in a downtown area? The thing to keep in mind: the farther from downtowns, the more affordable it is and we can do more with what we bring in.

Results:

• 44.6% want to keep the event as close to 'downtown' as possible.
• 34.5% were ok with moving farther from the downtown areas into the suburbs.
  
• 20.9% were ok with us holding 360|flex at airport venues. IE. still nice places, I've seen many, but not near anything else, attendees would be effectively trapped on site.

Tom and I watched this one with interest, since location is a HUGE factor on price. Airports and suburbs are obviously cheaper. I personally like Hub cities less than an hour from the airport. I hate connecting flights. I'd rather not make our attendees endure them if at all possible, unless they fly Southwest and then they get what they deserve :)

Question 3: We really like the whole 360 price point as it matches our name. However, if we raise the price by 1/3 we can keep things as they are and still give some money to speakers.

Results:

• 46.8% wanted us to keep the price at $360.00
• 53.2% were ok with raising the price. Not a lot, but under $500.00

What impressed me with this question's answers. People could have really put the screws to Tom and I. "Keep it $360, pay speakers a bit, keep food." that combination would probably have shut us down. I'm very impressed with our attendees that honestly said, "under $500? That's still a great deal." To which, we agree and say thank you for giving us room to move.

We also got 41 open ended answers to "what else" You can read those here.

I go into detail on my thoughts on pricing on our company blog, so I won't here.

We're also (in the next week) going to announce East Coast. Stay tuned. It's gonna be cool and a ton of fun! We've got some new ideas to try out, that we're pretty sure will appeal to everyone.

See you in Milan or ! :D