Important Message from the Governing Board

January 30, 2024

Dear Psychonome,

When the first meeting of the Psychonomic Society was held at the University of Chicago in 1960, a gallon of gas cost $0.31 and a median American home went for $11,900. The meeting of the Society was free. More than six decades later, our last annual meeting in San Francisco was still free while the median house price had increased 40-fold.

We can be justifiably proud of our ability to keep registration fees for our meetings at zero for 64 years. But pride alone does not allow the Society to thrive at a time when the cost for hospitality and audiovisual services have skyrocketed after the pandemic.

So here we are, and you can guess what comes next.

We are in need of introducing registration fees for all attendees at our Annual Meetings, commencing with the 2024 meeting this November in New York City. Despite the significant growth of our membership and the increasing influence of the Society in the field over the past decade, we face some financial challenges due to our current revenue structure in combination with surging inflation and pandemic-related losses. We are in a good position now, but we cannot build our future on the deficit budgets we have been experiencing in recent years.

By introducing modest registration fees in 2024 and an increase in membership fees (e.g., to $85 for Members) in 2025, we will be able to better preserve and protect our organization’s invaluable intellectual capital, goodwill, and 64 years of history.

We acknowledge that arriving at the decision to introduce registration fees challenges decades of tradition. The topic went through thoughtful deliberation for over a year involving the Strategic Planning and Finance Committees, before reaching the Governing Board where the discussion continued.

Here’s a quick reminder of the Society’s mission:

As you can see, holding the Annual Meeting is essential to who we are as an organization. We are excited to be meeting in New York City at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square in November.

This is a once every 10-15 years’ event. The buzz surrounding this meeting is unparalleled and the location is sure to not disappoint.

Why charge registration fees to members?
The proposed budget to run this year’s Annual Meeting stands at approximately $1M. We have been fortunate that our journal contract with Springer has been able to support past meeting expenses. Although we have had a consistent focus on efficient management of expenses and the smooth running of the sessions and events to give the best possible attendee experience, the meetings industry has experienced a substantial impact from the pandemic. This has led to unprecedented increases in costs. For example:

• Pre-pandemic, our audio-visual expenses fluctuated between $100k and $150k per year, depending upon the city. However, in 2022, these expenses increased to $196k, and further rose to a stunning $311k in 2023 – double from before the pandemic. Staff believe this arises from a need for AV companies to recover losses incurred during the pandemic.
• While food and beverage expenses vary from city to city, our meeting planner reports that food expenses have increased an average of 30% since the pandemic. The same, or higher, percentage increases apply to printed materials, shipping costs, poster boards, and labor fees from our vendors.
• While we have excellent staff (both PS-employed and through our management company), salaries and benefits as well as our management fees have steadily increased over the years. 
  

The Annual Meeting accounts for over 50% of our yearly operating expenses.

Disappointingly, it looks like these increases in expenses are here to stay. In order to reduce the financial impact of these substantial increases, the Governing Board has approved the following registration fee structure for 2024 as follows:

And here is a comparison of our 2024 fees with those of similar organizations:

As you can see, even with implementing registration fees for the first time, we still have the lowest fees across fields. Moreover, we plan to continue this fee structure for the foreseeable future because the increase is based on thorough long-term modeling and exploration of multiple scenarios. We believe that this one-time step may allow us to continue without further increases for quite some time.

We understand that the current financial climate may be challenging for some of you as well. Therefore, we will offer reduced fees for anyone facing extreme financial hardship in addition to the travel awards that the Society offers to graduate students. Please contact us at info@psychonomic.org for more information.

As a reminder, registration for this year’s Annual Meeting will open in early July.

In Summary
After careful consideration by multiple committees as well as the Governing Board, we need to implement registration fees for future annual meetings and increase membership fees for the first time in eight years. These modest moves are aimed at sustaining the financial health of our organization and ensuring its continued ability to provide valuable experiences for our attendees.

While this decision marks a shift in our approach, it’s important to emphasize that these new registration fees and membership dues are still the lowest across fields and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for your support of the Psychonomic Society. We look forward to your continued membership and participation in the 2024 Annual Meeting. Should you have any questions or comments, please reach out to us at info@psychonomic.org.

Sincerely,

Stephan Lewandowsky                                                   Lou Shomette
Chair, Governing Board                                                   Executive Director

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