[arch-events] Archcon 2011

[Dusty Phillips]

On 16 August 2010 07:10, Pierre Schmitz <pierre at archlinux.de> wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:16:02 +0200, Dieter Plaetinck
> <dieter at plaetinck.be> wrote:
>> Some ideas:
>> * Maybe we can do it together with Froscon.  (like opensqlcamp does
>>   their sql conference at froscon)
>> * I know there are some local schools and businesses in Belgium (Antwerp
>>   and Ghent) willing to provide rooms for free for tech/open source
>>   conferences.  Probably similar opportunities exist in other countries.
>> * ..?
>
> We had this idea for some time now. I think we would benefit from
> attaching our con at e.g. FrOSCon. This should save us money, we need
> less to organize and I am sure we'll see a lot more visitors. (people
> might not want to travel a long way if it's just for quite small con
> about a single distro.)
>
> I guess the only thing holding us up till now is that organizing this
> would be a lot of work and responsibility. :-)

This has always been the hold up, but Ricardo and I have proven it's
doable. ;-) ArchCon2010 was a great deal of fun, but also a great deal
of work; it left me feeling pretty drained, but it was worth it. The
amount of work isn't actually so great if you do two things:

a) get enough people to commit to helping with organizing and split up
the work. Ricardo and I did ArchCon2010 pretty much on our own,
although most attendees pitched in on the actual day of the
conference. I think that with three or four people sharing the load,
it wouldn't be too much work for any one of them.
b) Leave a lot of time. If you want to do it in July next year, start
planning now (Go Dieter!).
c) Post a blog with some arbitrary dates, a call for talks, etc. Pick
arbitrary dates for when to have talks submitted by, a list of
presentors chosen, when attendees must be registered by, schedule up
by, a location confirmed, etc. Publish these and try to stick to the
schedule.

I'm willing to help out by hosting the blog, getting schwag (badge
holders, t-shirts and bags) together, and dealing with incoming and
outgoing money. Somebody else has to be responsible for booking a
location, booking catering, discovering nearby possible
accommodations, ensuring the place is near pubs (note: important!),
and the wireless will be supported. And a third person should be
responsible for receiving and choosing presenters, setting up the
schedule, and setting up other scheduled activities (I dropped the
ball on a world-wide bug squashing this year). A fourth person to get
audio/video recording set up would probably also be useful.

Personally, I like the idea of having the conference on it's own, as
we did this year. It legitimizes it a bit, and gives us full control.
It was smallish this year, but it was fun and worth it.  think year
two would be more popular, especially with so many more Archers in
Europe. Also, from some of the complaints about FrOSCon organizing
this year, are you sure you want to work with them? This decision
comes down to who is willing to organize the local stuff, more than
anything.

Dusty