
MLA Finances 101: Understanding Conference Registration Fees
Submitted by: MLA Finance Committee, Tony Nguyen, Treasurer
The MLA Finance Committee, composed of a dedicated group that includes current and past board members, plays a crucial role in ensuring the financial sustainability of our association. Our responsibilities include discussing and considering fees, like membership and conference rates, based on the operational needs of the association and presenting annual budget proposals and motions to the Board. This involves allocating funds to support initiatives and strategic decisions approved by the Board, as well as programs and activities the membership would like the association to offer throughout the year (e.g., the Research Training Institute, Rising Stars Program, and education and training programs), and the annual conference.
One concern that came to the Finance Committee’s attention is that the registration fees for MLA’s annual conference have increased significantly, but library budgets are getting smaller. Therefore, it is implied that MLA does not prioritize cost-saving methods appropriately for the annual conference.
In a review of the annual conference costs, our costs decreased by 31.4% between 2019 and 2024. MCI, MLA’s association management company, helped reduce the cumulative direct costs to run the conference from $519,076 in 2019 to $427,508 in 2024. This decrease can be attributed to MCI’s management of our conference operations and negotiating discounts on our behalf. MCI began managing our meetings in 2020, with the first in-person conference post-pandemic in 2022. MLA’s decision to work with MCI has decreased our conference operations costs. An additional question arose about selecting a cheaper location to host the conference. MCI helps negotiate with conference sites to give members the most affordable possible rates, and the decision on which city will host the conference is based on feedback from the broader membership. You can learn more about the site selection process from MLAConnect.
Our essential conference operations costs are decreasing, but our registration costs have increased. How is that possible? There are a few reasons for this, and the most significant drivers are decreased vendor support and decreased registrants. Vendor revenues are almost 47% less than what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic global shutdown. In that period, vendors who used to provide sponsorship merged with other vendors or reduced their sponsorships significantly. This, coupled with a decline in participant registration, has increased registration fees for the conference.
As previously stated, participant registrations have experienced a decline. The Finance Committee attempts to predict how vendor sponsorships and attendee registrations may impact the overall attendance at an upcoming conference. This will determine registration costs, hoping to break even if not earning revenue. The decisions on membership and conference rates come from the Finance Committee, which works with MLA Headquarters and the Board to review the budget regarding costs and discusses how we can diversify our revenue streams to help alleviate direct costs to our members.
Decisions recommended by the Finance Committee and approved by the Board helped the association reduce operational costs at the annual meeting. For instance, following the 2019 annual conference, the board decided not to hold business, committee, and caucus meetings during the annual conference, which cut roughly 40 additional conference room reservations.
MLA has made changes such that the costs of virtual conferences have dropped from $75k to $25k by streamlining how the virtual conference runs. However, vendors do not sponsor virtual conferences, so the virtual conference is an operational cost to MLA. The virtual conference is paid for through registration fees.
For more information on MLA’s revenues and costs, we recommend referring to an MLAConnect post made earlier this year on MLA’s Finances. If you have any questions for the Finance Committee, please contact Tony Nguyen, 2024-2025 MLA Treasurer.
2024-2025 MLA Finance Committee Members
Tony Nguyen, Treasurer
Amy Blevins, Immediate Past President
Kate Flewelling, Treasurer-Elect
Andy Hickner, Board Member
Chris Shaffer, MLA member at-large
Melissa Besfir DeSantis, MLA member at large
Kevin Baliozian, MLA Executive Director