It's a great suggestion to be transparent about how CEA supports Summit and EAGx organizers. Many published event retrospectives include full cost breakdowns, but we haven't put out anything consolidated and I think you're right that it would be very helpful for potential organizers to sense check.

The main blocker for presenting this info is that events are all essentially one-offs. We've put together standardized resources to help each event team try to estimate their event's cost, but then we evaluate each event budget proposal independently. Our cross-event comparisons show large swings that depend on things like the city's cost-of-living and whether there are already financially supported EA community builders working in the region. A single incidental factor, e.g. a student on the organizing team who can book low-cost university space as the venue, can change the projected cost by 30% and be the difference between whether we believe an event will be cost-effective or not.

Some very rough numbers from events in 2024–2025 that might still help people considering applying to run an event:

• EAGx event costs ranged from $70,000 to $280,000USD (including organizer pay and travel support). We aim for a paid team of 4–6 to spend up to 1500 total combined hours over 4–8 months. CEA supports these teams with regular check-ins and oversight.
• Summit event costs ranged from $10,000 to $30,000USD, and CEA does not currently have the capacity to support them with as much staff time. These events can take between 150 and 400 hours to execute over the span of 2–8 months.
  • We give significant autonomy to these events; we want everyone to feel fairly compensated and avoid any perception of being pressured to volunteer. But some events have organizers whose personal situation and belief in the event's potential impact mean they choose to volunteer their time (or a portion of it) and dedicate more of their event funds to the production costs.

More about volunteering, because it's one of the things I want to communicate most to potential organizers: as someone who personally volunteered significant time to EA community building, I recognize that this helped my own career path and I certainly don't want to stand in anyone's way if they want to make that choice. Event organizing is a great way to test one's fit for EA operations work and make connections in the EA professional network; one of my favorite elements of my job is to see organizers I've supported transition from the temporary work of event organization into full time careers in EA. 

Being willing to volunteer is a signal of dedication that we take into account, and at the limited amounts we have to support Summits, reduced organizer pay can be the difference between being able to support an event or not. I want to be transparent about that, and also be very clear that we recognize that being able to volunteer is a privilege that most people don't have. I want to stress our aim that no one feel pressured to volunteer their time. The majority of our event organizers are paid a fair wage, and I want applicants to feel confident that they can apply to run events with the expectation of getting paid if that's best for them.

Oh and while I'm on here, I've applied to run an EA Summit in the UK in the second half of 2026, so if anyone wants on-board with that my inbox is open for any and all speculations. I'm looking for someone who can do content - I can handle logistics myself and I can pull in participant welfare from my non-EA contacts network (but if you've a particular knack for EA participant welfare I still want to hear from you).

I think it's the old way to say Aotearoa. I dunno, seems like a place to have new zeal about things.

Gearing up for announcement now! (Nov 22 on UCLA campus)