Since then, that job (and my finances) imploded. I have since regained some employment stability, but the fiscal damage is far from healed. I’m working a second part-time job and keeping my eyes peeled for a better one in order to pay down debts from the layoff.

First, the bad news:

Barring a substantial monetary windfall, I can’t afford even the bare minimum deposits and operating expenses for a tiny, hotel-based conference.

Running a really kickass (but tiny) conference, with a sponsored keynote speaker (airfare, hotel, & meals), a hospitality suite, advertising, and so on could easily have run $5,000 or more. Even without those, the room costs and taxes would’ve been about $1,500 (for up to 75 people), plus another $500 or so for things like programs, badges, and other unexpected incidentals. That’s around $2,000, mostly upfront- even if admission fees could cover it on the backend.

Second, some good news:

If I dump the entire idea of attracting people from around the country/world and move to a small venue that isn’t a hotel, I can probably reduce the upfront costs significantly.

Third, some ambivalent news:

Cutting back to a purely local conference also means a reduction in content and chances to meet new and interesting people from far away. This decreases the perceived value of the conference, which means that any admission fee would have to be much smaller. That would limit the ability to carry funds forward to the next year.

That said, I am still investigating this possibility in the hopes of doing something in early 2020 with the goal of building on that towards a proper conference the following year.

Fourth, for something completely different:

Hearthingstone was first and foremost about creating professional development opportunities for polytheist leaders to help them improve their skills for serving The Gods, their communities, and their traditions.

Increasingly over the last year, the fractious and scattered state of our polytheistic communities has been a topic of discussion amongst said leaders. There is a swelling impulse to draw the faithful closer together. As I wrote last fall:

From a practical standpoint… it’s much easier to start a successful business, become a “mover-and-shaker”, find a date, or even just a decent job if the people around you know you and have common cause with you. It’s also easier to build a temple.

To that end, I am adding a “Polytheist Villages Network” page to this site and also a discussion group on Facebook. I’m not entirely sure what this will evolve to be, but my goal is to help foster intentional communities for polytheists in the form of neighborhoods or similar forms of geographic proximity and common cause.

As there are any number of important considerations regarding where people live and why, I think this will be an interesting topic for some polytheist leaders, especially those directly involved in serving groups of the faithful. That said, I think it could be a potentially valuable resource for monastics and mystics as well, who (like many of us) often struggle to find needed support services.

I hope you will join us in this endeavor, and at whatever sort of conference I can pull together.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post A Year & Then Some appeared first on Hearthingstone.

For a conference, especially one that aims to run year after year, it’s vital to actually collect and manage a certain amount of data. Each attendee’s badge pick-up information at the very least- their name if nothing else. Ideally, email addresses and/or mailing addresses would accompany that so that we can notify them of changes and reach out when the following year’s registration is available.

Between the personal data and the payment processing, there are security concerns that naturally arise. An annual conference probably shouldn’t try to get into merchant services accounts and card processing and all that. Well, maybe 10,000-person conferences should, but not a small one like us. That means finding a registration service provider- someone like Eventbrite.

Similarly, there are good reasons to use an email communications provider like Mailchimp– to minimize your risk of getting thrown in the spam bucket if nothing else!

All of these services cost money, of course.

Eventbrite charges a fee for each ticket sold. We’d have the option of wrapping the fee into the cost or passing it to the attendee on top of the registration cost. For example, if the registration costs $50, the processing fee might be $5. This would make the actual cost to the attendee $55 if passed on, or make the actual income from the registration $45. Either way, it’s a balancing act. From what I’ve seen, the other providers are pretty similar.

It’s worth saying that WordPress plugins can do some of the same things, but that means dedicating a lot more time to site administration.

On the other hand, Eventbrite’s default is to hold payouts until after the event, which will simply not work in this case. They have a system for rolling payouts ahead of the event, but you have to apply for that- so it’s not a sure thing.

I also considered crowdfunding services like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Sadly, they don’t have any sort of CRM systems from what I’ve seen. Also, their track record for funding conferences is abysmal.

In an ideal world, we’d also be able to register attendees for individual events- for instance Session A or B at 3pm. Obviously, this requires having the schedule nailed down, but it makes it easier to plan which sessions need the bigger rooms! Eventbrite doesn’t appear to have such a system, nor did the other services I saw. So whatever solution we go with might still require a bunch of manual data entry.

Do you know of a better (and cheap) solution or service provider?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Registration Systems appeared first on Hearthingstone.

It is located within walking distance (1/2 mile or less) of a number of restaurants, two movie theatres (including an artsy one), and is directly next to an old shopping mall that is being redeveloped into a mixed-use center including a community college, apartments, shops, and the like. It is one of four hotels in the vicinity that I’ve been interested in, and is the most walkable of the four.

That said, this part of town is fairly far from the airport and I don’t think this hotel offers a free airport shuttle. I need to remember to ask next time we talk. At least one hotel nearby does. The route from the airport isn’t complicated, but for those who don’t or don’t want to drive it could be an issue.

On the other hand, it’s the closest hotel to the Greyhound bus terminal, being a little more than a block away. As far as mass transit, there is a red line train (to downtown) stop about a 7/10 mile walk away. The route 350 bus stops a bit closer, but it’s still a hike. Given Austin (and Texas) mass transit in general, this isn’t bad, but it’s probably further than folks used to good transit systems expect to carry bags- especially if it’s a warmer time of year!

Speaking of times of year, I got a list of possible dates for this hotel. We cut off March of 2019 and earlier to leave enough time for planning and getting enough attendees. March and October are also the two craziest months for hotel space in Austin, apparently.

Here are the dates that the hotel is costing out for us:

• April 5 – 7 (Would have to start late on Friday)
• April 19 – 21 (Also being considered by someone else- Easter)
• April 26 – 28 (Would be using less than my preferred rooms)
• May 30 – June 2
• June 14 – 16
• July 12 – 14
• July 26 – 28
• November 1 – 3
• November 8 – 10 (Veterans’ Day weekend)

August, interestingly, was booked solid. According to the hotel, it’s usually dead, but in 2019 it’s filled up. That might be for the best, given our summertime temperatures.

As far as other events, it looks like there are three possible conflicts amongst the events I’ve found. Spring Mysteries runs April 18-21. Mystic South is in-between the two July dates. Spiritfire hasn’t released their 2019 dates, but it’s usually in mid-July as well.

Of course, for those engaged in Celtic reconstructionism, the first weekend in November might easily create a scheduling conflict. So too for those practicing Mexican traditions. While Austin does have a large Dia de los Muertos celebration, attending it isn’t the reason for the conference.

The following weekend could be tight for folks whose work includes services timed around Veterans’ Day.

That’s my report for today.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Venue Candidate #1 appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Aside from the obvious costs of deposits, renting meeting spaces, and the like, there are numerous other things that will require money. For instance, I mentioned the cost of program books in another post- they run about $2 a copy. Selling ads can help offset that, but it’s still a cost. Hospitality suites are another possible cost, as are badges, and any advertising for the conference itself.

All-in-all, I expect the total cost to be several thousand dollars. Did I mention my pockets not being filled with combustible currency?

This gets us back to the question of dividing up that cost amongst the attendees in the form of a registration fee or “membership” as many non-profits call their admission charge. If the total cost is $10,000, then divided up amongst 100 attendees, we’d be looking at $100.

Is that reasonable?

It seems steep to me, but then again I’m a cheapskate.

Based on some advice from one of Hestia’s servants on our Facebook group, I decided to take a look at some major events with similar components- namely Pantheacon and Paganicon. While these are broadly-based events that draw a large number of non-polytheists and laity, they are a reasonable starting point for comparison.

Pantheacon costs $80 at the door or $70 pre-registered. Its hotel costs $289 a night (before block discount)- way higher than I was looking to go! Gods willing, we might someday have a Hearthingstone that needs 48,000 sqft of meeting rooms, but I’ll probably die of old age before then.

Paganicon costs $90 at the door and as low as $60 for early registration. Their hotel is much cheaper at $95 a night (also before any discount).

One of the hobby conventions I used to work on is now $55 for the weekend, while some of the bigger, professional events are now over $100 for four days.

At the same time, Hearthingstone is (in a sense) a professional development conference. Those things can easily run several hundred to over a thousand dollars… not that I think anyone in our target audience is likely to drop that kind of cash!

Out of curiosity, I decided to check out the cost to attend a regional Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (my parents are Methodists, so sue me). The standard fee for clergy or elected lay leaders to attend the Minnesota Annual Conference is $250-275 depending on when they register. This is not unusual- I found a number of others in the over $200 range.

I then decided to do a larger comparison, more specific to esoteric events. Here’s a quick sampling:

The more expensive ones seem to include some kind of accommodations- usually in bunkhouses or a campsite. Some of them are also much longer than a weekend.

In an aside, I noticed that November through early February seemed pretty empty.

One last thought, before I set this down for the night…

Hearthingstone is not intended to be a one-time event. My goal is to be able to keep it running, which will require being able to not only cover the first conference’s costs but also to set aside something for the next one.

Thoughts?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Registration Cost – A comparative approach appeared first on Hearthingstone.

First of all, after some careful review, the downtown hotels are just too damned expensive. For every hotel that I’ve considered, I tried to price a room with a king bed for the last weekend in October 2018 (just a consistent date several months away, not a date I’m considering). The cheapest hotels I could find downtown with adequate space were nearly $300 a night! Some were as high as $600- NO FRICKIN’ WAY!

My best results were in the north-central parts of Austin. These areas have been experiencing a lot of rebuilding, both from gentrification (bad) and renewal of old industrial/commercial areas into more modern uses (good). There are also some traditional conference hotels in this area with fairly reasonable pricing, though I worry about going to someplace that’s too big right out of the gate. For example, one place that runs about $155 a night (most places are usually cheaper if booked for a conference) has around 24,000 square feet of meeting space!

That’s too big. The first Hearthingstone would be a drop in the bucket for them, so we’d have a hard time negotiating.

On the other hand, I’ve identified a couple of promising venues, though each presents their own challenges.

One has just under 2,000 sqft of indoor meeting spaces (and a 1,500 sqft pavillion) available, plus outdoor fire pits and a fairly reasonable pet policy. It’s also about a mile from a large Whole Foods. It’s located in a reclaimed industrial area that’s been converted into a mixed-use development. But it’s also the more expensive of the two, starting at $179 (they advertise $149 for groups of 10+), which is pretty cheap for the rather upscale development it’s in.

The other is a suites-only hotel (many with kitchens!) with a decidedly “green” bent, fireplaces in many of the rooms, and a distinctly cheaper price tag- $119 a night! That’s before any consideration of group discounts. They’re big on hypoallergenic cleaning, organic food, solar panels, and they even have an electric car charging station (there’s a Tesla charging station going in around the corner, too.).

The downside? They don’t really do meetings.

Their only meeting room seats about 35 people, max. They have a dining room, and a nice fireplace in their lobby- but those aren’t reservable as private space. Going here would mean booking extra rooms just as meeting spaces, and I’m not sure how well that would work.

That said, their suites would make travel a LOT cheaper for people because of the kitchens- plus some of their suites sleep up to 5. That’s $159 (+tax) split up into about $32 a night per person, which makes attendance more affordable for many folks. I haven’t yet heard about their pet policy, though.

I’ve reached out to both venues, though I’m strongly considering the latter if I can figure out a way to accommodate the meeting space needs. Also, Google Maps shows a “church” at the same address, so I’ll need to assess these folks’ openness to a polytheist leadership conference. It could just be an old listing. Both are within half a mile of bus stops requiring only one transfer from the airport bus, so that’s a plus!

On the downside for smoking attendees, just about everywhere in Austin seems to be non-smoking. On the upside for non-smoking attendees… just about everywhere in Austin seems to be non-smoking.

Whew- lots and lots of hotels looked at!

Now to see if I can work something out with any of them…

Thoughts?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Hotels – Refining the List appeared first on Hearthingstone.

An important starting point is to determine a list of requirements and “nice to have” features.

For instance, it would be really awesome if the venue has a working fireplace or firepit that we can use. It’s not really a requirement, though.

When running through some of my early planning thoughts, I said that I wanted to aim for 100-200 attendees and hopefully be able to grow to twice that before needing to find a new site. One of the 2014 PLC organizers encouraged me to think simple first. Not just in terms of venue size, but also programming. I was thinking about three or four sessions at a time, she encouraged me to stick with two.

I’m torn.

On the one hand, this is a distinctly low-budget operation. I might end up collecting cans or something to pay for hotel deposits and the like. Going small to start with should help keep costs down and make all sorts of planning easier. Heck, I’m going to have enough trouble finding good people to run two sets of worthwhile sessions, let alone four!

On the other hand, I get the distinct impression we need to go bigger because of currents and tides outside of our awareness. More programming means more reason for people to attend, and one of the big reasons for Hearthingstone is to build human-to-human networks in support of the Gods’ purposes. But larger venues will cost more and require more of a deposit, so there’s more downside if I can’t get enough people to come.

So, what size does Hearthingstone need? The Quality Inn in Fishkill could seat around 100 in a classroom layout, plus there was a breakfast area that could also seat people. Of course, some events were not “classroom style”, so the seating capacity was significantly reduced in those cases.

Even keeping things simple, I’d still like to be able to accommodate 200 attendees. This gives us some flexibility to have sessions that take up a lot more space than a simple lecture- ceremonies and hands-on workshops, for instance.

Here’s a rough map of the areas that have hotels in Austin. Obviously, there are some hotels outside of these spots.

The green areas have hotels that might work. The red ones I’m excluding because of things like high crime, too little meeting space overall, or because the area gives me a headache.

There are some moderately-sized convention hotels outside of downtown (the most expensive area) that might work, but then again they might be too big. Many convention hotels will offer discounted (or free) meeting rooms if attendees book enough “room nights” at the hotel. The question being “how many is that?” Will Hearthingstone be able to draw enough of a crowd to “comp” the meeting rooms?

In another post, I talked about the need to connect the venue via public transit (or shuttle) to the places people will be arriving- the airport, etc. Obviously, this is easier downtown and becomes harder the further out we go. In considering more downtown versus away from downtown, there are several trade-offs:

• Closer to downtown generally has better transit service.
• Further from downtown is generally cheaper.
• Further from downtown is generally less noisy and crowded, though not necessarily. Many other venues are either near the airport or a major highway.
• Closer to downtown often has a wider variety of services within walking distance, though again not necessarily.
• Ironically, downtown venues often have more access to greenspace because of parks along the river (“lake”).
• Downtown venues typically have the least parking and they often charge for it, while venues further out tend to have plenty of free parking.
• More of the venues downtown have meeting space large enough, whereas many of the further out hotels are simply motels and have little or no meeting space.

Personally, I have a soft spot for La Quinta because of their remarkably tolerant pet policy. We stayed almost entirely in LQs while moving halfway across the country with three cats. A cat breeder I know tends to stay in them for the same reason when traveling to shows. They also tend to be reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, few of them have meeting rooms larger than a boardroom. For instance, one that I stayed in last year (during apartment renovations) has only 2 meeting rooms and the largest seats only 35 people, classroom-style. The largest LQ meeting facility in town tops out at about 105 people. That might be enough, but it’s also the most expensive LQ in town ($175/night)- about twice the cost per night of the cheapest.

Speaking of pets, this raises another important point. Some attendees may be required to travel with animals- service companions and/or animals who work with them spiritually. While most hotels are pretty good about service animals, many are downright draconian regarding “pets”.

Another consideration is food and alcohol. Many of the more conference-focused venues will have their own catering service and possibly even an alcohol license. As I talked about in another post, we might need to provide food and (soft) drink for attendees, which becomes unmanageably expensive if catering is involved. As far as alcohol, if the venue has a license, we get into questions of “corkage” fees and/or waivers if any of our events involve open containers of alcohol- even offerings.

That’s probably enough ruminating about hotels and locations for one evening.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Venue Considerations appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Hearthingstone is intended to serve a small subset of the polytheist populace- namely those in (or being groomed for) positions of responsibility and service to some tradition and/or community.

This immediately shrinks the size of facility down. Even if Hearthingstone grows miraculously large, we will probably never need hotel rooms and seating for 50,000 people. This might seem obvious, but if I were planning a media fandom event I’d have to consider such a possibility.

I can’t find my materials from the 2014 PLC in Fishkill, but I recall the attendance being around 50 or so. It might have been larger, but I’m pretty sure there were less than 100 attendees. Once I can give this conference a little more life of its own, I’ll ask the organizers if they recall.

My hope is the have between 100 and 200 attendees for the first Hearthingstone. This will require more in-depth outreach to bring in leaders from local and regional pockets who aren’t necessarily connected to the same networks as the folks at the 2014 PLC. In picking a venue, I’d also like to be able to roughly double that size over time without having to change locations.

This brings up another very important issue- transportation. In order to bring in attendees from around the nation (and world), good transportation is a must. I’ll explore host city considerations in another post, but figuring out how to get people to the conference will consume a considerable amount of time.

As far as programming, I’m thinking that a main “stage” and 2-3 smaller sessions per block will provide a good variety of options without spreading people out too much. Given that there are several “big” categories of topics and nearly endless subcategories of each, this should also help ensure that nearly every block has a session appropriate to any given attendee.

Why is this important?

Hearthingstone is asking folks to expend considerable time, effort, and money to attend- as host, I owe them my best effort to make sure they feel it’s worth the trouble. The first time someone attends a conference and rubs shoulders with a famous blogger or author, that’s usually a big deal to them. The novelty wears off, though- it’s the general quality of programming that enables a conference to attract people again and again.

If we are going to be successful in building up the strength of polytheism in the world, we need people coming back.

That’s enough for one night’s noodling. Keep an eye out for more detailed posts in the coming days and weeks.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Planning Begins… appeared first on Hearthingstone.