[OSGeo-Conf] Start 2019 RFP / Board discussion about RFP for FOSS4G-2019

[Bart van den Eijnden]

Several members of our community have pointed out that it is an issue 
for them to attend, e.g. Jeroen Ticheler pointed this out before. For me 
this is the same, I normally can't attend a conference in the school 
vacation. Boston wasn't possible. Bonn was barely possible because 
schools had just started that week (but some years school vacation will 
be until early September even due to regional rotation).

Looking at attendance figures and saying it's no big issue doesn't 
really give the right attention to the problem IMHO.

Also even if the venue might be cheaper, I'm sure flights and 
accommodation will be expensive in the European holiday season.

Best regards,

Bart


On 31-08-17 15:03, Steven Feldman wrote:
> 2016 was in august and attracted 940/950 people
> 2017 was in august and attracted 1140 people
> That's record attendance 2 years running (in August)
>
> Doesn't look like August is a big issue for us in the northern hemisphere.
> I also heard from some of the organisers that they were able to obtain lower rates for venues in August
>
> I think we should leave it to LOCs to propose the dates that work for them based on regional holiday patterns, pricing, weather and any other constraints they may have
>
> Now I'm going back to my end of august holiday ;)
>
> Steven
>
>
> On 31 Aug 2017, at 13:15, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> Also I can imagine of editing the section regarding the conference dates:
>>> I think we just have s.t.h like a target timeperiod (Sept-Oct), but we
>>> should hint bidding teams, that they may choose the best and/or maybe also
>>> cheaper period around this target period. On the other hand, I also know,
>>> that there have been some problems for people attending the conferences in
>>> 2016 and 2017 that took place in holiday-pregnant August, so maybe we can
>>> also have a discussion whether we can/will allow people to have their
>>> conference in August?
>> I think this is very important. Having the conference during the
>> northern summer may look appealing to people that go to conferences as
>> if they were holidays. But for people that need to take care of their
>> family or people that just want to enjoy their holidays disconnecting
>> from work, this is a major issue.
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