I think a good idea would be post the date, time, location, etc. weeks in advance and tell everyone that a week or ten day before we will be opening registration until all the spots are filled. This would cut down on people just getting tickets for themselves and others hoping they can make it when the time comes.

I also like the idea of creating a system to give your ticket up to a friend , co-worker, etc.

I have also blogged about this at http://tinyurl.com/4u725l .

One thing that I have just thought about is why don’t we ask the people who did not turn up why they did not, why they did not hand back the ticket, and how they think we could solve the problem.

http://allinthehead.com/retro/332/the-trouble-with-barcamp

The right answer to this dilemma should instantly result in so few no-shows that the actual act (e.g. the naming and shaming) doesn’t have to be done. No need to shame 3 or 4 people.

You could ‘fix’ naming and shaming privacy issues by being factual in your naming ceremony: Leave it up to the people that are going to be doing the shaming to show some tact.

If people have been multi-ordering tickets, then an admin fee might help some, but, I doubt there’s a balance where the amount isn’t prohibitively annoying, yet enough to be a serious deterrent. Then again, the point of the exercise is not so much to come up with a foolproof system, but to just make it more obvious that no-show is not something people should ever do. Perhaps charging a symbolic fee along with an explanation of why is enough.

One thing is for sure: I’d love to see something done at the next BCL, just so we can start trying some of these ideas.

Here’s another crazy idea: Send an email on sunday evening, a week before the event, with a link in it, to all ticket holders. If a ticket holder hasn’t clicked the link by fridaymorning, they lose their ticket. Because time is short, I’d then send out ticket claim mails to everyone on the backup list. First-come-first-serve.

Sounds like a lot of work, though :(

An admin fee (£20) would work; people will think more about grabbing up tickets It might also hopefully stop people buying up a shit load of tickets for everyone in their office at once (something that I know leads to a number of tickets being hoarded and maybe not used).

Could also just rely on some communications between organisers – we know the people who don’t show up and can make this availiable. Then we could do stuff like not let people register in the first/second round of tickets or something like that…

So yeah – there are a number of options (just not a fan of the naming and shaming one)

@Reinier – I personally wouldn’t have any problem having my ID checked at the door, but you’re right – I’m sure some people wouldn’t be keen on that. Naming and shaming is definitely the easiest of the options available.

@Kerry – I’m starting to veer away from the idea of charging. The cost could only ever be nominal for fear of forcing away those who just don’t have the disposable income, even if it was refundable. And if the cost was nominal then it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some people just wouldn’t care that they paid for something they didn’t go to.

So, naming and shaming FTW?

I’d favour publishing the names of people who don’t show up and don’t return their tickets, too.

Peer pressure is pretty much a requirement for a blacklisting scheme (unless you want to check IDs at the door, which seems like it would cause a bit of a spaz-out from the usual barcamp crowd!), and while I doubt anyone would complain about a symbolic fee, I’m not sure how effective that would be to reduce jackasses who don’t show. I don’t know about the others, but if I noticed a no-shower that I knew, I’d definitely have some words.

My thanks to eBay for a great event and the foresight/serendipity to plan for 150 people instead of the usual 100, so fortunately the large amount of no-shows was hardly noticed. Lucky break.