That's a hilarious diagram!

OK: my experience. As an organizer, last year I organized a half-day business "boot camp" for a client, which was free to attendees, and we even got the space & refreshments sponsored. The speakers were mostly regular contributors to a business-related blog I manage for said client, and all pretty respected in their fields. The content of the boot camp was terrific, if I do say so myself. With the event being free, we had a fairly long waiting list, and with the event being free, there were several no-shows (and I know some of that can't be helped, but let's face it, there are always people who RSVP to free events and then don't show up because it's too early, too late, whatever).

The boot camp itself was tremendous; you could literally feel the energy in the room, and attendee feedback was amazing. If we do the event again this year, I think there will be serious consideration as to whether to charge this year; so that we get people who are serious about the event, and also because good content *is* valuable... and we now have a good reputation/base to build on.

Also last year, I organized a half-day writing workshop for my local IABC chapter with a very well-known writing coach. Now, the speaker was not "free," so in order to recoup our costs, we had to charge for the event, and charge significantly more than we usually do. But you know what? We filled up, even though this was not a "cheap" event, and, in fact, people came from pretty far to participate. Again the content was terrific and the speaker has a tremendous reputation; feedback was great. People didn't mind paying the registration fees at all.

For the most part, I do think that charging a fee is a good idea, particularly with name speakers. I think the speaker's (or speakers') reputation and promotion are also critical, though; you could have a speaker providing great value, but if no one's heard of them, they're probably not going to cough up even $10 or $15. That is why perception matters if the content is still valuable (to answer Meghan's question).

Does that mean free events aren't valuable? No, not at all. They'll just be different types of events. For example, Guy Kawasaki is speaking at a free event here in DC in May, that I registered for as soon as I heard about it (except now I'm going to miss it because of BWE!). In that case, the fact that it was "free" only added to the value for me, because I'd get a chance to hear from someone who's done tremendous things in our world.

I guess it comes back to the end goals. What do we want to achieve, and how will charging a fee/not charging a fee make a difference? That's the question to answer, IMHO.

Sorry for the essay-length comment!

One piece I'd still like to hear from you: Why does the perception matter if the content is still valuable? I think you know Ignite has good content and is, if nothing else, entertaining. My point with the (tongue in cheek) diagram is that the only people to whom the "free" perception makes a difference are those who use the price tag of an event to determine its value. Most of us decide value based on many criteria, and "free" is only a piece of the puzzle. But it's still unclear to me how that in any way devalues the event.

That said, I believe that putting a nominal fee on an event has the benefit of eliminating attendees who only go because it's free. It forces people to ask whether they still think it's valuable $10 later. Social Media Breakfast adopted this model, and it seems to have been successful.

However, I don't think that $10 in any way speaks to the value of the content. In fact, I almost feel like an even that is able to feed beer to hundreds of people for free because it can garner that level of sponsorship probably has more value than event that needs my $10 to function.

First, apologies for the lengthy first post on your blog - I found myself intrigued by your question and wanted to share my thoughts (as an attendee).

I agree with your point that a nominal fee is a good thing to reduce no-shows and prevent logistical difficulties. For me personally, a free event doesn't have any less of a value expectation than a paid event. I've been to plenty of great free events and (fewer, but still some) terrible paid events.

One of the great advantages of a free event, though, is that it lowers the barrier to speculative attendees - people who aren't sure if they'll like it or not, and who are willing to dedicate the time but not necessarily the money to find out. As someone a couple years out of school and with limited resources, If I heard about a potentially interesting event one evening for free, I might want to stop by and check it out, but if I had to start out by committing a decent sum of money, I have to have a much higher expectation that it will be good.

So I can see two potential effective models coming out of this. First, and this only likely works for larger events, you could have tiers of admission. For example, there could be free admission to the larger event, and a nominal fee (as you say, $10 or $25) for admission to several of the talks with more big-name speakers. It introduces more organizational challenges on the day of, but it does allow for both those who want to just stop by and see what the event is like and those who are engaged and committed to hearing the major speakers. It also ensures even more that those who pay will show, because they've already decided that they care enough to skip the free attendance for paid.

The second thought would be to start with a free model for a new event and move to a nominal-fee one. Free, I imagine, would boost attendance for an event with little name recognition, and then as the number of interested people increases, you could raise prices so that you could bring in more big-name speakers and to keep attendees down at least to the point that the ticketing isn't a mad rush.

Thanks for raising the question!