

Ask HN: What are your best tips for organizing conferences? - osmnshkh

Getting speakers, finding cheaper venues, engaging attendees, etc.<p>Compiling a list for the startup I work for, BusyConf.
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gus_massa
Don’t use PayPal. Usually a conference involves more money than usual. Another
problem is that conferences are a big risk, people don’t like speakers, too
crowded, the sound or wifi is awful, the venue cancels at last minute and the
alternative sucks, ... So there are too much chargebacks and PayPal usually
frizzes the money until the chargeback period clears. (You can agree with
them, you can disagree with them, but you can’t ignore that they have this
informal “rule”.)

Some examples:
[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=paypal...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=paypal+conference&start=0)

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osmnshkh
Wow, I can't imagine how much it must suck to have your event funds withheld
when you need to pay for venues, travel, equipment etc.

This is one of the reasons why we don't let people use their own payment
gateways.

Thanks for the tip.

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redtexture
There is a wealth of advice from Chris Williams, creator of JSConf -->
[http://jsconf.com/](http://jsconf.com/)

About three-quarters of his posts have something useful for a conference
organizer.

His blog: [http://www.voodootikigod.com/](http://www.voodootikigod.com/)

He's trying out something to share how its done, called "Ask A Tech Event
Organizer" AATEO [http://www.aateo.com/](http://www.aateo.com/)

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osmnshkh
This is great, thanks for sharing.

