Hans Moritz Günther is a research scientist at MIT. He works on high-energy emission from young stars and their jets and outflows. He was the chair of the LOC for the Cool Stars 20 workshop in 2018 (550 participants), and was on the LOC for two TESS related conferences in the summer of 2019. This post is the second in a series of posts on tips for organizing conferences.
Do you need to have a conference dinner? If you are organizing a conference and need to ask yourself this question, then the answer is probably “no.” However, a dinner can be a good opportunity to hang out, casually talk science, and to get to know your fellow astronomers a little better. Most often, the question “dinner or not” is decided by tradition (certain conference series always have it) and by budget. In this post, I’ll describe the process of planning a conference dinner which might help you decide if you want to have one or not.
Organizing a conference dinner can be the most daunting task of the entire conference planning process. There are many options, a large range of prices, and while many astronomers like to go out, few of us have attempted to book a table for ourselves and 125 of our closest friends. In fact, the only time most people cater something this big is for a wedding, so wedding planning websites are appropriate places to look for advice. For example, there are helpful guides about choosing a buffet or a plated meal.
In this post, I’ll share a few things we learned from organizing the conference dinner for Cool Stars 20 in Boston. Every city is different, but hopefully I can explain some of the compromises that every conference organizer needs to make and help you understand why some things may not run smoothly (as an attendee), as well as give you a few ideas if you are organizing your own conference dinner.
Stock photo, licence CC0
The first step in planning a conference dinner is to lay out the framework: approximately how many people will attend and what is your budget per person? As a rule of thumb, smaller and cheaper is easier. You’ll want to book a restaurant or caterer a few weeks in advance for 50 people, a few months in advance for 100 to 200 people, and a year in advance for 500 people. Even in a city like Boston, we found that there are only a handful of locations that can handle 500+ people for a formal dinner.
How do you pay for it? A dinner can be included in the conference fee. That drives up your cost, but makes planning easier since you know that almost everyone will attend; dinners with an extra charge attract typically half or less of your conference attendees. That’s because in many countries the institute will refund the full registration fee, but there is a limit on food reimbursements (e.g., in Germany, that limit is about 25 EUR per day, which leaves about 10 EUR for dinner).
What do you serve? Personally, I like something with a local touch, but it’s really up to you. What is important to know is that astronomers have a higher fraction of vegetarians than the average population. At Cool Stars 20, the choices were about 15% vegetarians, 30% fish, and 55% meat.
Expect about 1 in 100 astronomers to have dietary requests that are more restrictive than vegetarian (e.g., vegan or lactose intolerant). Tell people how to tell you these details, such as a field in the registration form or by email, so that you can pass that information on to your caterer and make sure they will have something to eat.
Buffet style or served on tables? Some people strongly dislike buffets because there are lines and always the risk of running out of certain dishes, which is bad for vegetarians at the end of the line. On the other hand, many astronomers will not remember their initial choice anyway and pick from the buffet spontaneously, so running out of the particular component they ordered initially will not affect them. For Cool Stars 20, attendees chose from the options of meat, fish, or vegetarian in the registration web form. We confirmed the choice at the registration desk on the first day and over half of the attendees could not remember what they signed up for (vegetarians and people with food allergies will remember!). If you are doing a plated dinner you will need to pre-order the number of every dish offered. Final numbers are typically due about two weeks before the event. At the event, servers will need to know who gets which dish. A common way to do this is to hand out color-coded cards. (“Put this red card on your plate for meat,” etc.) That means that you need to hand out those cards, either at the conference registration (and then people forget or lose them) or at the dinner (and then you need another check-in line). Alternatively, for a buffet it’s okay if three people take fish instead of meat and others take meat instead of fish. The law of large numbers means it will work out. Oh, and beware of last-minute changes with plated dinners. (“This extra ticket was for my wife and now I want to give it to my student instead. Can I switch to fish?”) This may sound like such a simple request, and as an organizer you feel you should try to accommodate everyone, but be wary of setting a precedent. It might be fine for one or two, but 5-10% of attendees will ask for changes. For a conference of 500 people, that could be as many as 50 people. You will lose track of who gave which ticket to whom and there will be chaos. So, my recommendation: go with a buffet if you can.
Conference dinners can be expensive. A three-course meal at an outstanding restaurant can set you back $50 to $80 per person. Drink tickets will be about $10 to $15 per drink. Add transportation to the venue, room rent, flowers on the table, and other costs that are not included (in the USA, tax and gratuity), and a formal dinner can end up costing $150 per person. But depending on what options you choose, conference dinners can also be cheap. If you are in the countryside and serve a BBQ by the campfire, you can probably make do for $30 per person.
One final consideration: the more relaxed atmosphere at conference social events provides an opportunity for attendees to let their guard down, but a reminder about anti-harassment policies, such as that of the American Astronomical Society and the European Astronomical Society, may help curb any inappropriate behavior. Limiting the amount of available alcohol may also be a good idea.
This has been my experience. Please share other experiences and advice in the comments.
Thanks, nice read! Question (probably naive European speaking here): $10-15 per drink is horribly expensive. Is that a US thing, or is there more subtleties I fail to see?
It depends on where you are and what the drink is. In general I have the feeling that alcohol is more expensive in the US because of the complex permitting laws (which differ by state and city, but usually you need a licensed bar tender, need a permit from the city for each individual event, and in many cases a policeman/women on site). But a “drink coupon” that can be used for wine or beer might cost you 5-10 EUR in Europe, too, depending on the quality of the wine and beer served, I guess.
I did my wedding in Germany and beer there was a lot cheaper than water was in the US!