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Proposal: Conference & Travel (Sept)

Ryan Taylor

Well-known member
Foundation Member
This is a cross-post from www.dashcentral.org/p/conf-travel-201609

This proposal is to fund Dash’s sponsorship and participation at the 4th annual Latin American Bitcoin & Blockchain Conference (laBITconf) November 4th & 5th in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It will also cover a small amount of additional expenses for the Atlanta Blockchain presentation.

laBITconf

laBITconf is the premier Bitcoin and blockchain conference in Latin America, and features speakers that are amongst the most prominent participants in the industry. This year’s event features high-quality live streaming, over 400 on-site attendees, and extensive media coverage. Speakers include Andreas Antonopoulous, Peter Todd, Erik Voorhees, Trace Mayer, Sergio Lerner, and Anthony Di Iorio.

We participated in last year’s conference in Mexico City, and the conference marked the beginning of the dramatic increase in visibility, mindshare and market capitalization that we’ve experienced over the past 9 months. In addition to increased visibility among key investors and digital currency industry participants, we received numerous mentions from other presenters.

Our participation last year consisted of a small exhibit table at the conference –manned by Evan, Daniel and David (Lebubar) – and a slot on one of the panel discussions.

For a better idea of the impact we saw, this video should give you a good sense for the positive response we received at the 2015 conference.


This year, we would like to increase our presence, visibility, and participation in the event dramatically, by becoming a Platinum Sponsor. In addition, Evan Duffield will be presenting one of the main stage speaking slots, rather than being a panelist.

The Platinum Sponsorship package consists of the following:
- The Dash logo appearing on the on-stage banner, which will be in the background of all speeches and live streams
- Platinum Sponsorship logo on the main event webpage
- A booth on the conference floor
- Four VIP passes (valued at $400 each), which includes a private dinner with the other speakers and networking events

We would also send our head of business development – Daniel Diaz – to attend the event to enable him to establish and deepen relationships with potential business partners.

Finally, Daniel has donated use of his Dash ATM to allow us to conduct demos in the Dash booth. We are requesting funding for transport of the ATM to and from the conference to enable this demo.

The estimated costs for our proposed participation in the conference is as follows:
- Platinum Sponsorship package ($7,500 USD)
- Two flights and ground transportation from Phoenix (Evan) and Panama City (Daniel) - ($3,000)
- Dash pamphlets and conference giveaways ($700)
- Transportation of the Dash booth banner (oversized international checked bag fee - $200 round trip)
- Round trip packing and shipping of the Dash ATM ($700)
- Hotel costs – 2 rooms for 4 nights @ $250 per night ($2,000)
Total estimated costs: $14,100

The break-even to the network on this investment would equate to about 0.002 USD / Dash, which we think could be dramatically exceeded through our participation in this conference.

Atlanta Blockchain meeting presentation

In addition, we have encountered higher than estimated costs for the Atlanta Blockchain meeting on August 24th. Flights were not available for the day of the event that arrived in Atlanta with enough leeway to ensure Evan’s timely arrival to the event. Therefore, Evan will need to fly in the day prior to the event, requiring an additional night at a hotel. In addition, the organizer of the event is providing pizza and soda, and we agreed to contribute toward those costs with a 25 Dash donation, in part because they are expecting a dramatically larger turnout than normal. We should be able to handle most of the unanticipated expenses because of the appreciation in Dash’s price, but will need additional funding to cover the 25 Dash food expense.

Requested funding is as follows for the September 4th budget cycle:
Total: 1,044.10 Dash

Note: Any unused budget will be applied toward future conferences and travel expenses

Manually vote YES on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many 343ec4335d872a21b23beb0142680b8b8a26c87007de81a8f05b05b619aa3f93 yes
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many 343ec4335d872a21b23beb0142680b8b8a26c87007de81a8f05b05b619aa3f93 yes

Manually vote NO on this proposal:
dash-cli mnbudget vote-many 343ec4335d872a21b23beb0142680b8b8a26c87007de81a8f05b05b619aa3f93 no
OR from the qt console:
mnbudget vote-many 343ec4335d872a21b23beb0142680b8b8a26c87007de81a8f05b05b619aa3f93 no
 
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The proposal is to pay for attending the conference, but who will be attending is not clearly stated in this proposal. Based on 4 VIP tickets being available, and mention of the 3 who attended last year, plus a suggestion that Daniel Diaz attend this year, the readers are going to assume this pays for FOUR people to attend. However, based on the Dash Slack comments, this is not true. The proposal is for Evan Duffield and Daniel Diaz to attend only. This absolutely needs to be clarified so that people know what they are voting on.
 
How big is this conference compared to the recent d10e in San Fran?

The show promoters would have provided some metrics like the number of attendees and exhibitors for prior years. Please provide a link to those metrics/materials.

What is the cost of this conference compared to the San Fran d10e conference?
 
The proposal is to pay for attending the conference, but who will be attending is not clearly stated in this proposal. Based on 4 VIP tickets being available, and mention of the 3 who attended last year, plus a suggestion that Daniel Diaz attend this year, the readers are going to assume this pays for FOUR people to attend. However, based on the Dash Slack comments, this is not true. The proposal is for Evan Duffield and Daniel Diaz to attend only. This absolutely needs to be clarified so that people know what they are voting on.
Evan and Daniel
The standard Platinum package included only 2 VIP tickets. Daniel negotiated an additional 2 tickets, which could be provided to business partners or could allow any local Dash community members or those willing to fund their own travel to attend as well. The extra two tickets are just an added bonus. We are not paying for them.
 
Hello question of mine from dash slack, can you break down the "giveaways" line item?
This is an estimate based on the costs incurred for d10e. The actual expenses for d10e included $257 for double-sided color cardstock brochures, and $373 for bags, notebooks, and a couple of placards. I rounded that $630 up to $700, because I used a coupon for the brochures last time, plus this is a bigger conference.
 
The proposal is to pay for attending the conference, but who will be attending is not clearly stated in this proposal. Based on 4 VIP tickets being available, and mention of the 3 who attended last year, plus a suggestion that Daniel Diaz attend this year, the readers are going to assume this pays for FOUR people to attend. However, based on the Dash Slack comments, this is not true. The proposal is for Evan Duffield and Daniel Diaz to attend only. This absolutely needs to be clarified so that people know what they are voting on.

i don't think it matters. the proposal price is the same whether it is 2 people or 4 people. part of the platinum package comes with 4 vip passes, so if there are two more people then it looks like they will be paying their own way/flight and hotel. it may be their wives which is fine by me. this is a easy yes vote.
 
How big is this conference compared to the recent d10e in San Fran?

The show promoters would have provided some metrics like the number of attendees and exhibitors for prior years. Please provide a link to those metrics/materials.

What is the cost of this conference compared to the San Fran d10e conference?
In terms of the cryptocurrency industry, this is the more significant conference. d10e isn't cryptocurrency or blockchain specific... it is a decentralization conference.

As per the OP, there are about 400 people in attendance at the event, which is comparable in size to d10e.

See labitconf.com for more details, and they have links to prior year's events. Last year's venue was only 300 seats. This year's is expected to be larger.
 
i don't think it matters. the proposal price is the same whether it is 2 people or 4 people. part of the platinum package comes with 4 vip passes, so if there are two more people then it looks like they will be paying their own way/flight and hotel. it may be their wives which is fine by me. this is a easy yes vote.

Following that logic, the price is the same if we pay and no one goes. Conferences are about networking within the industry. Are you suggesting 4 people can network just as efficiently as 2? My bigger point in this is that other proposals have been vague, and that has been taken advantage of. It costs pennies to be specific and clear. Proposals should be.
 
Following that logic, the price is the same if we pay and no one goes. Conferences are about networking within the industry. Are you suggesting 4 people can network just as efficiently as 2? My bigger point in this is that other proposals have been vague, and that has been taken advantage of. It costs pennies to be specific and clear. Proposals should be.

Evan and Daniel
The standard Platinum package included only 2 VIP tickets. Daniel negotiated an additional 2 tickets, which could be provided to business partners or could allow any local Dash community members or those willing to fund their own travel to attend as well. The extra two tickets are just an added bonus. We are not paying for them.
 
See labitconf.com for more details, and they have links to prior year's events. Last year's venue was only 300 seats. This year's is expected to be larger.

I don't see that on their site. Besides, it is in a different location each year, so it is hard to compare 'apples to apples'.
 
I don't see that on their site. Besides, it is in a different location each year, so it is hard to compare 'apples to apples'.
If you click on last year's event (near the bottom of the site) it will take you to last year's site. There it states that the venue seated up to 300 people. I have no idea how many actually attended, but it seems to imply that was the maximum capacity of the venue. In either case, they claim they expect 400 people at this years event.
 
I think conferences are a great way to make contacts, and this is the biggest in Latin America. I support us going down there and also for us doing it in high style (platinum + lugging all that stuff down there) But I would like to propose those two extra tickets go to Amanda and Pete so that they can cover the conference with interviews (of partners, of conference goers and their needs, of anything they can think of).

Amanda could do an intro to Dash before Evan speaks, like in Atlanta. I thought her intro got everyone's mind into the right place as to what Dash is, and helped bring the audience up to speed so they could follow Evan, who tends to talk at a more technical level (though he didn't do too bad in Atlanta :) )

I really think Amanda and Pete could get a TON of material over the course of that conference. This material could become part of Dash Detailed, and "special" shows. It would be awesome if they could do a Dash overview each evening of the conference to keep the rest of us up to date on how things are going (we're always waiting for news when we send the team to something, but usually there is only silence)

I don't know if Amanda and Pete are up to doing this, but I'm hoping they are. I've already offered all the coins I got in the Dash Chat Slack to help pay for a proposal to pay for the trip. Please, if any of you feel the same, make a comment here and maybe we can convince Amanda and Pete to do it :)

Thanks for reading :)
 
I think conferences are a great way to make contacts, and this is the biggest in Latin America. I support us going down there and also for us doing it in high style (platinum + lugging all that stuff down there) But I would like to propose those two extra tickets go to Amanda and Pete so that they can cover the conference with interviews (of partners, of conference goers and their needs, of anything they can think of).

Amanda could do an intro to Dash before Evan speaks, like in Atlanta. I thought her intro got everyone's mind into the right place as to what Dash is, and helped bring the audience up to speed so they could follow Evan, who tends to talk at a more technical level (though he didn't do too bad in Atlanta :) )

I really think Amanda and Pete could get a TON of material over the course of that conference. This material could become part of Dash Detailed, and "special" shows. It would be awesome if they could do a Dash overview each evening of the conference to keep the rest of us up to date on how things are going (we're always waiting for news when we send the team to something, but usually there is only silence)

I don't know if Amanda and Pete are up to doing this, but I'm hoping they are. I've already offered all the coins I got in the Dash Chat Slack to help pay for a proposal to pay for the trip. Please, if any of you feel the same, make a comment here and maybe we can convince Amanda and Pete to do it :)

Thanks for reading :)

I think this is a very good idea.
 
did the daniels dash atm make it to the labit conference? it would have been nice to see a video like with the soda machine.
 
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