As part of wrapping up EAGxAustralasia 2024 we have written a public report (68 pages including appendices) to share our decisions and what we learned. We think this is likely to be valuable for future event organisers (of EAG/xs and other events) and may be of interest to others in the community.
The report spans from reflections on our broad strategy and goals to detailed reflections on executing particular aspects of the conference. We imagine that different sections will be interesting to different people.
There’s a few ways we suggest engaging with the report:
Skim the table of contents
The table of contents covers the main points made throughout the report, so you should be able to easily skim for parts you find most interesting.
Read Claude’s Executive Summary
We asked Claude to write us an executive summary—a very lightly edited version of this is below.
Read the whole report
There’s a particular type of person who will find this a really engaging read: maybe you’re that person!
Feedback from a non-EA operations manager was “I had to stop myself because I got SO ABSORBED”
Ask us questions
We’ll be in the comments and are happy to answer questions about most things
The report (while being long) still misses many details and decisions that were made throughout the organising process. If you're curious about anything, please reach out; it's likely that we have more material, crafts and planning docs for various aspects.
Thank you again to all speakers, attendees, volunteers, CEA, the organising team and everyone who makes our community so vibrant, compassionate and meaningful.
— The organising team
Bridget Loughhead, Tom Hutton, Jing Fan and Will Horan
Throughout this report, all financial figures are in Australian dollars (AUD) unless otherwise specified.
Table 1 | EAGxAustralasia by the numbers
EAGxAustralasia 2024 | ||
| Attendance | # of applications | 371 |
| # of registrations | 278 | |
# of attendees collected badge on the day | 259 | |
| Budget | Total event grant excl. travel support & staff costs | AUD $303,837
(£160,000.00) |
| Planned expenditure | $223,700.00 | |
Actual expenditure at 2024-12-09 | $128,509.21 | |
Cost per attendee excl. travel support | $749.50 | |
| Effort | Total core team hours | ~1450 hours |
| Content | # of sessions Talks + workshops + meetups | 42 sessions |
| # of speakers | 37 speakers | |
| Feedback Survey | # of survey responses | n = 127 |
| Average rating (/10) | 8.72 | |
| Welcomingness (/5) | 4.54 | |
| Food (/10) | 7.31 | |
| % first timers | 26% | |
| % women | 27% | |
Executive Summary (by Claude)
EAGxAustralasia 2024 was held in Sydney from November 22-24, 2024, marking the 8th EAGx conference in Australia. The event brought together 259 attendees from across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally, with an average rating of 8.72/10 from feedback surveys.
The conference was organised by a team of four core members working within Effective Altruism Australia (EAA), a shift from previous years' more grassroots approach. The organising team focused on four main goals: fostering connections between attendees, encouraging impactful actions, exposing attendees to important ideas, and creating a welcoming culture for all participants.
Key achievements included:
- Successfully managing the event under budget, spending approximately $128,500 of the planned $223,700
- Delivering 42 sessions with 37 speakers across diverse EA topics
- Achieving high 'welcomingness ratings' (4.54/5) from attendees
- Successfully implementing a new multi-venue format with a public keynote on Friday and the main conference on Saturday/Sunday
Notable innovations included an "Open Discussions Corner" for group conversations, a book-focused merchandise approach that aligned with impact goals, and a "stewardship" buddy program that connected newer and more experienced attendees.
Challenges faced included:
- Lower attendance than targeted (259 vs. 300)
- Managing venue-related logistics with a multi-venue setup
- Catering issues, particularly around dietary requirements labelling
- Finding the right balance of interactive sessions and traditional talks
The organising team identified several recommendations for future events, including earlier venue booking, refining speaker selection processes, engaging more with LinkedIn for marketing, coordinating applications with other regional EAGx events, and standardising metrics for year-over-year learning.
The conference successfully transitioned to being officially housed within EAA, establishing reusable processes and documentation that should make future iterations more efficient while maintaining institutional memory.
Overall, EAGxAustralasia 2024 successfully achieved its core purpose of bringing together the EA community in the region while setting foundations for sustainable conference organisation in the years ahead.