Barcamp has grown – again. This coming barcamp will be SD 6, which means we’re on our THIRD year of barcamp. Technically, since we had to push BCSD6 to January, we’ll be beginning our FOURTH year.

In the beginning we had to ask for wireless hardware, chairs, extention cords, you name it. As time went on the planning crew better understood what it took to satisfy the barcampers and adapted. I know I’ve personally paid out of pocket more than 3 times to get things covered – and I’m not the only one. This far along though we have a tightly regimented process, and we’ve been using it for nearly 2 years now – it works perfectly.

We ask for visa gift cards and checks. It gives us as planners the flexibility to go to any store, shop or vendor and buy what we need for BarCamp. Our budget grows every season. This last BarCamp we had more than 300 people attend.

Comparing the rough budgets from BCSD1 and this upcoming BCSD6 we can extrapolate the rate of growth, and what to expect for next time, assuming the community grows congruent to the trend.

• BCSD1 had a budget of around 3 grand.
• BCSD6 has a budget of 6 grand.
• That means a couple things:
• We’ve doubled our budget in 3 years
• We grow our budget by 500 dollars every barcamp.

How did we come up with these figures?

Well, at first we had to literally throw darts. We had to assume, hope we got it right, then employ rapid course correction in the event we were off enough to cause problems. The second BCSD was a lot easier than the first.

The answer is that we grow these figures using the same algorithm as the budget figures. There were some troublesome developments though – many companies including some of our sponsors had to do layoffs due to financial hardships – so we had to lop off a chunk of our budget (didn’t get a shirt last season? This is the reason why. We can only print so many.)

Here’s what our budget looked like last year:

• Shirts: ~$1200
• Dinner Saturday: ~$1000
• Snacks: ~$1000
• Lunch Saturday: ~$1000
• Lunch Sunday: ~$1000

That totals ~$5200. This season, we’re aiming for $6000 or more – we’ll take as much as we can get. We’re expecting some numbers from the LA crowd to come to San Diego this time around – more than before, so we’re planning on seeing numbers in the ~350 range. Thats food, snacks, shirts and equipment for 350 people for 2 days.

Here’s how the sponsor contributions are laid out:

Sponsorships can be obtained in one of three levels:
1) Primary – $750+
2) Secondary – $750
3) Tertiary – $300-$500

Visa Gift Cards or Checks made out to Dan Tentler (the sponsor/budget guy/) are the preferred methods of payment.

Alternatively you can elect to sponsor one of our ‘direct vendor’ costs:

1) T-Shirts – $1500
2) Lunch sunday afternoon – $1000
3) Lunch Saturday afternoon – $1000
4) Dinner Saturday Night – $1500
5) Snacks – $1100
6) Beer – $250

Simply email sponsors@barcampsd.org!

We’re very flexible – our goal is simply to have the event happen. If a vendor is not comfortable with handing over cash, they are usually okay with directly paying the vendor (for example, for dinner, or lunch).

Now that you know, please – go spread the word! We want BCSD6 to surpass the awesomeness expectations of the previous five – its our 3 year birthday! Help us celebrate it by having an epic BarCamp!