Budgeting for a conference

See IEEE CS Conference Information Page for the spreadsheets for the budgeting process. (Called a TMRF -- Technical Meeting Request Form). Based on past meetings, a gross level budget is:

Major Items in the budget. Mostly those that are fixed.
Budget Category	Approximate numbers	How these are generated
Advertizing -- Call for papers	$5000	This is computed from general costs, printing, mailing.
Advertizing -- Advance Program	$5000	Essentially the same as the Call for papers. Generally the same mailing list
Committee Expenses	$2500	Phone, secretary and the like
	$4000	Postage. It costs a lot to mail papers for review, expecially if there is international participation in reviews.
	$15000	Committee Travel -- it is important to have most (all) of the program committee attend the meeting to decide on the papers. This runs into 20-25 people and is a major cost.
Operating Expenses	$7000	Registration costs. Computed from other fields in the spreas sheet.
	$4000	Invited Speaker costs
	$15000	Proceeding printing. This is computed based on pages.

Other Items in the budget that vary more by numbers attending.
Budget Category	Approximate numbers	How these are generated
Meeting Expenses	$4000	A/V Expenses. Universities are less. Hotels are a lot more.
	$3000	Shipping, signs, etc.
	$5000	Meeting space rental and such. Universities usually charge, hotels usually give it for some number of sleeping rooms.
Social Costs	$18000	Banquet. Non-student attendence times some banquet cost.
	$15000	Reception. Everyone. Should really be less than this.
	$6000	Breaks -- Morning. Consider 2 breaks -- breakfast and mid morning, this would be higher. Universities are a lot less. Hotels are very expensive. ($7.50 per person)
	$6000	Afternoon Break.

In addition to these numbers there is the 14% charge that the computer society imposes and the 10% contingency (to protect against random events). Note that these are not imposed on the social costs. And you should target a 10% surplus.

Maintained by

Keith Price, price@usc.edu.

Last updated: May 26, 1998