FOWD Conference 2008
The Future of Web Design conference is being held in the Roseland Ballroom, New York City, NY this year on November 3rd, and 4th. After some encouragement from a presenter and guest speaker on November 14th the Advanced Web Tools course is pushing to make it to the conference day (Nov 4th) of this event.
I am stilling working on all the details, but it does seem possible. In addition, we are hoping to travel with Zac Gordon‘s Web students from Springbrook HS making it all the more fun.
The awesome folks at Carsonified, FOWD 2008 sponsors, have agreed to drastically lower admission, but with travel and one nights stay it is still a considerable cost per student.
The Breakdown
Ticket cost = $45.00/student
55 passenger Charter Bus = $3000.00 (roughly, still finalizing a company for this)
Hotel = $138.00/room with a booking of at least 25 rooms…$3450.00, plus tax, etc total
NOTE: Hotel is still an option being explored as it requires more funding. The alternative is to leave Damascus, MD around 3am on Nov 4th and arrive back to Damascus around 11pm that evening. At the moment we are exploring all options.
With Hotel
$3000.00 (bus) + $3450.00 (hotel) = $6450 / 55 passengers = $117.27 + $45.00/FOWD admission = $162.27 per student
Without Hotel
$3000.00 (bus) = $3000 / 55 passengers = $54.54 + $45.00/FOWD admission = $99.54 per student
To you and me, $100.00 may seem like a fair price, but these are students of diverse background and not all can afford such a trip. Plus isn’t this the type of things students should be experiencing rather than being stuffed up in a classroom all year typing in Dreamweaver?
If you are a business that would like to help by making a donation so that these students get to the conference at minimal cost then please contact me directly at mrbrown [at] teachmetheweb [dot] org, any amount would help. Attending conferences like this one are the things that propel high school students into the field, HELP! .
What are people saying?
@jackson - I have updated the article with some specific numbers, short answer is yes we are considering a day trip. Thanks!
3AM!!!!!!!!!
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is there financial help for people who need it?
Are there school regulations saying you have to take a Charter bus? With the Charter bus you are paying about $55/seat ... if you just took something like MegaBus the seats are cheap as $10/person round-trip. That would save you almost $2,500.00.
MegaBus is awesome, new buses with movies and are equipped with wifi; what more could you ask for?
@martin there are certain regulations, one major one is that you can only use third parties provided on a bid list. The list is developed by the county and we don’t get <strike>much</strike> any say about it. I just quickly reviewed the bid list and unfortunately MegaBus is not on it. Too bad, sounds awesome.
M. Jackson Wilkinson
09.11.08
09:12 AM
Have you considered making it a day trip? I attended FOWD as a day trip last year, and it was tough (especially while trying to attend the after-party), but not really that bad.
What kind of total funding need are we talking here?