Intro
Remote work is great! Gives everyone a lot of flexibility and comfort to work from wherever we want. Either in a remote location away from the busy urban life, or close to home with family and friends nearby, I can speak for all Balancer contributors and say we are most thankful for collaborating in a thriving ecosystem that knows no borders or boundaries. We love web3!
However, in-person interactions are the best! Speaking from experience, being present in the past three Balancer ONsite editions (Bogotá, Barcelona and Milan), there’s no doubt there is great value in these irl events. Our last meetup in Milan was an absolute success by kickstarting Balancer V3 work, and now we are set to plan our next interaction in Lisbon, to wrap up and launch V3 to the world.
V3 talks in Milan were well underway…
Proposal
This proposal requests budget allocation from the Treasury to fund expenses for DAO contributors (service providers and other key participants) for a week-long meetup filled with activities alongside Balancer Labs contributors.
Organizing an event is not effortless. As part of the ecosystem liaison role, the Maxis will be taking over this activity (together with BLabs). Time is of the essence, as hotels need to block big sized groups like ours in advance, and flights are never cheap.
We are currently estimating the event at 3,350 euros per person, allocating 84.755.00 USDC for 23 attendees.
- Balancer Maxis: 7
- Beethoven X: 5
- Balancer Foundation: 2
- Balancer OpCo: 5
- Other Ecosystem Contributors: 5
Balancer OpCo still holds 38,280.95 USDC from last edition’s budget, so are requesting to top up 46,474.05 USDC. Any unused budget will be kept at OpCo for future use, as governance may direct. Balancer Labs will pay for the costs of its (15) guests, and common expenses will be split proportionally. The total expense/allocation is still well below our projections made in Q3 ($93,750 for reference)
You can check last edition’s proposal for more info.
$23,320.00 Travels and Airport Transfers
$23,494.40 Accommodations
$10,890.00 Food and Beverage (including Welcome Reception and Farewell Dinner)
$3,371.59 Meeting Room expenses
$7,260.00 Activities
$5,232.00 Travel agent (including on-site staff expenses, flights and accommodation)
Learnings
Helping to plan the last Milan ONsite after Orb’s demise, we have learned that big group events are not necessarily cheaper, and we might not find “bulk price” for suppliers like hotels, restaurants, and activities. On the contrary, these vendors might look at events like this as an opportunity to get “full-price” sales instead of discounted retail prices we see on websites.
Furthermore, we found it necessary to have a travel agent with some expertise assisting in this process. We were, however, unhappy with Canva (our contracted service provider for past editions), as their deliverables were not up to their fees and commissions. Alongside Balancer Labs, we are moving to another agent, who is also specialized in corporate events but offers lower fees overall.
Needless to say, we will make great effort to bring down the values presented here, as negotiations with suppliers are just getting started. These are initial quotes and estimates. The Maxis have a proven track record of successfully fighting unnecessary expenditures and championing savings across the board.
It is our intent to get it below 3k euros per person, but we also want our contributors to feel good about coming to these meetups. We understand they are leaving their families for the week and most of them are flying long distances (no business class tickets!), so bonding and comfort are also very important to us!
Specification
The DAO multisig on Ethereum 0x10A19e7eE7d7F8a52822f6817de8ea18204F2e4f will send 46,474.05 USDC to Balancer OpCo’s wallet 0x3B8910F378034FD6E103Df958863e5c684072693