[OSGeo-Conf] Q: Nottingham, UK, LOI

[Steven Feldman]

Paul

Thanks for your questions, here are our answers

1) With regards to the collocation of events:

Our proposal is very much to run these events back-to-back in a 6 day
period. However we envisage that there will be an overlap day for workshops
which will attract audience from both communities. Registration and branding
will be handled separately but we will cross-promote the events to their
separate communities to encourage overlapping participation. Registration
for the overlapping workshop day will be attributable for each participant
to one or other event (e.g. through each event's registration). Both
registration systems will offer the same dual registration discounts to
encourage audience cross-over.

We feel that the separate marketing will maintain the separate messages and
appeal of the two events. However FOSS-GIS is becoming an increasingly
important part of the UK GIS industry (from the promotion of open source in
government in the UK; through the adoption of an OSGeo-based stack by the
Ordnance Survey for its reference platform for UK INSPIRE services; to the
success of business such as Astun Technologies in providing and promoting
FOSS-GIS solutions). The GeoCommunity conference has for 5+ years been
interested in geoweb, "neogeo" and open source solutions and has engaged
with these communities from outside the traditional GIS industry. We are
confident that the possibility of attending FOSS4G will very much appeal to
sections of the GeoCommunity. In addition the cross-over should offer a
great opportunity for the OSGeo & broader FOSS4G community to demonstrate
its wares and successes to the UK's professional audience.

Finally, we hope that there will be a further audience boost in attracting a
further audience who may have considered one or other conference in the past
but for whom the collocation makes a compelling case to attend both at a
great value point.


With regards to sponsors, we plan to offer separate single-event and
dual-event packages, similar to the attendance packages. We will take into
account in the cross-over day the opportunity for sponsors to change over
(we plan to give more detail of this in the main bid). We expect definite
interest in the combined package.

Overall, we see the inclusion of the AGI in the bid team as an entirely
positive thing within the structure above. The AGI bring strong history not
just in organising conferences and other events, but particularly also in
the GIS sector. In the UK they act neutrally as an association and have a
good reputation here for championing the industry in all its guises. Sharing
event organisation between the two events with the AGI has clear cost
savings (e.g. in reducing interactions between organisations) while the
events can still be clearly separated, financially and for marketting.


2) With regards to venue capacities and projected number of attendees:

Our target number of attendees is 900-1000.

For space, the letter has focussed on our hub venue, the EMCC. However the
EMCC is based on the University of Nottingham's University Park campus (a
beautiful campus set amongst rolling gardens). For plenaries we will be able
to use the university's Sports Hall (directly across the road). This is used
by the university for graduations (and so can be dressed for events) and has
a capacity of 1400 people.

We plan to give further details of the venues for speaker sessions and
workshops in the main bid but can give details of capacities in this phase
if appropriate. As an indication, within ~10 minutes of the EMCC (including
the EMCC itself but excluding the Sports Hall) we have speaker venues of
capacities from 80-800 people.

I hope that answers your questions. If you want any further info from the UK team please do not hesitate to ask.

Cheers

Steven
_____________________

Steven Feldman
_____________________
KnowWhere Consulting

m: +44 (0) 7958 924 101
w:  knowwhere
t:   @StevenFeldman
skype: stevenfeldman2638

On 2 Apr 2012, at 17:21, Paul Ramsey wrote:

> UK team,
> 
> Two questions stand out for me in reading your bid:
> 
> - First, when you say you will "co-locate" with AAG and there will be
> "6 days" of event, can you clarify your plans? Are the events to be
> serially co-located (first A, then B) or run in parallel over 6 days?
> Will there be joint registration and/or sponsorship for the events? If
> so, how will revenue be split?
> 
> - Second, in looking over your conference venue, it seems that the
> maximum event size would be around 500 (the capacity of the conference
> theatre or banqueting suite). What do you consider your maximum
> attendance, and how will you achieve that? (For reference, Barcelona
> attracted over 800 attendees and Denver over 900).
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Paul
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