Transparency report 2024

Kongres Next.js 2024 was the first edition of our new initiative: a tech conference revolving around JavaScript frameworks, including Astro, Angular, Remix, Vue, and, obviously, Next.js.

We, the organizers, have completely different characters, but we share one common value: transparency. Building in the open not only helps the community organize events but also helps us make subsequent editions of the conference better, thanks to your feedback. Hence, without further ado, we present the Kongres Next.js 2024 Transparency Report to you.

Currency: The tickets were priced in PLN, and the vast majority of our costs were also in PLN. Despite that, we've decided to present the amounts in EUR to make it more easily comparable by people around the globe.

We've assumed the currency exchange rate of 1 EUR = 4.31 PLN. Any discrepancies in calculations are a result of currency exchange and rounding.

TL;DR

1 day
nearly 250 attendees
14 talks (including 5 lightning talks)
Total income: ~€13800
Total cost: ~€12900
Profit: ~€900

Diversity

Country

We had 9 full-length presentations by speakers from Macedonia, Poland, Norway, Greece, the UK, the USA, Belgium, and Italy.

Additionally, we had 5 lightning talks, and four of them were given by Polish speakers and one by a person from Croatia.

Gender

Full-length presentations were given by 7 speakers who identified as males and 2 who identified as females (22%).

In the case of lightning talks, the ratio was 4:1 (20%).

78.6% of speakers identified as male, and 21.43% identified as female.

Initially, our agenda involved one more full-length presentation from a person who identified as female. Unfortunately, she was unable to join us due to health issues. Had she made it, the percentages would've been 73.33% and 26.67%, respectively.

Money

We didn't have any cost estimates, and ticket prices and the sponsorship offer were our best guess. We aimed to cover all the expenses, provide a good experience for all attendees, keep the event affordable to every developer, and remain not-for-profit. We hope we completed these goals.

Expenses

We've classified all expenses into 12 categories:

Staff – €358 (we only had a few people for a few hours helping us on the day of the event)
Venue, lunch, and coffee – €4,450 (cinema for the whole day)
Prints – €553 (badges and lanyards)
Promotion – €763
Hotels – €2,204
Travel expenses – €1,114
AVT – €1,160 (sound and mics as well as recordings and photos)
Dinner and party – €1,711
Stripe fees – €44.00
CO2 removal contribution – €117
Other (car rental, extension cords, etc.) – €295

Total costs: ~€12900

Income

Tickets

Tickets were priced at approximately €65 during the presale before the holiday season in December, €110 until January 18th, and €160 afterward. Moreover, we've handed out multiple coupons and discount codes that applied on top of those prices.

We generated 235 tickets, 51 of which were given for free to our sponsors, partner communities, and friends (22%).

122 tickets were sold through the Kongres Next.js website for €9502.

Additionally, 62 tickets were sold as a part of a special deal in our other initiative – the Next.js Masters course – and it's impossible to estimate the income from them at this time.

Balance

It seems that we have ~€900 left. That's more than we've estimated; however, it was a good safety net in case anything happened. It also contributed a lot to removing the anxiety we had at the beginning.

After settling all accounts, the money left will contribute to next year's edition of ~~Kongres Next.js~~ Kongres JS! ~900 euros is a little. Still, it'll allow us to cover the venue reservation fee a few months in advance.

Summary

We want to thank everyone who participated in the conference and give a huge shout out to our sponsors. We already have ambitious plans for the next year, and we want to continue on our mission on organising cozy, friendly, open, and not-for-profit JS conference.

Shout out to JSHeroes for being an inspiration to write this.