[FOSS4G-Oceania] What is our upper limit of registrations?

[John Bryant]

Good point. I would like us to follow through on having one paid person for
the lead up & during the conference, we've budgeted for it. That person
could be in charge of running the volunteer team on the day, which should
take pressure off us.

But I acknowledge that there would be a difference between 200 and 250 in
terms of human resource requirements.

On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 at 13:38, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey John
>
> The other constraint we should consider is Human Resources. This is our
> first one of these, and we have no paid staff. If we’re not careful we may
> end up with heaps of firefighting to do in the day and it may end up
> no-fun-at-all!
>
> My view is still to keep a hard ceiling of 200, just to keep it manageable.
>
> Cheers,
> On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 at 1:34 pm, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all, profound apologies for adding to the email traffic at a very busy
>> time, but we need to address rego numbers. We can also discuss at
>> tomorrow's meeting, but it requires context.
>>
>> On Monday, with 50 days left, we're announcing our program. We can
>> probably expect to gain some attention, and a run on regos. At the same
>> time, we're planning to announce the number of tickets remaining, to let
>> would-be attendees know how much urgency they should feel.
>>
>> Right now, we have 172 total registrations (136 actual, plus 36 set aside
>> for sponsors, students, committee members, presenters). A couple of
>> committee meetings ago, we talked about upper limits, and agreed to 'watch
>> and wait'. At this point, though, we need to come to terms with our actual
>> upper limits, so we can make an informed announcement on Monday.
>>
>> I think our key consideration is around constraints - what can we handle?
>>
>> *What are our bottlenecks?*
>>
>> *The #1 bottleneck: space for lunch & morning/afternoon teas.* The Arts
>> Hall will be used for catering and the sponsor tables. We'll need to make
>> sure we have enough space to accommodate all these people. A few stats on
>> the Arts Hall:
>>
>>    - total area: 220 sq m
>>    - total usable space, after sponsor tables and catering: about 90-100
>>    sq m (conservatively)
>>    - capacity, based on 0.5 - 0.75 sq m pp (suitable for mixed
>>    standing/sitting): ~125-175 (plus area behind sponsor tables, for another
>>    10-20)
>>
>> My best estimate is that the room will start to feel crowded once we get
>> past 175, but we have a few options to increase our capacity.
>>
>> To mitigate crowding we'll use lunchbox-style catering, so people can
>> grab their lunch and stand with it, or easily go to other spaces. As a
>> bonus, this will reduce queuing.
>>
>> Other readily available spaces:
>>
>>    - We have 2 nice rooms adjacent to the Arts Hall (rooms 257 & 263),
>>    with capacity of 48 each, that we could use as overflow seating.
>>    - We have talked about running Birds of a Feather sessions during
>>    lunch breaks, could use 257 & 263, or could use room 116 (cap 48)
>>    downstairs.
>>    - There are a number of seating areas in the corridor right next to
>>    the Arts Hall, with about 25 seats (stools/tables/chairs/benches), and many
>>    more throughout the building.
>>    - We have a room allocated to family use, which should be able to
>>    accommodate ~10-20.
>>    - If the weather's good, there are many nice outdoor areas where
>>    people can enjoy their lunch.
>>
>> All in all, I think even in bad weather, if we really pushed it, we could
>> potentially accommodate 300 - I would probably be uncomfortable going this
>> far.
>>
>> *The #2 bottleneck: lecture theatres.* We have 4 lecture theatres
>> available, from which we need to choose 3. The capacities of these rooms
>> are 405, 121, 83, and 81. If we're thoughtful with where we place our talks
>> (using the community vote as a guide), we should be able to handle quite a
>> few. I see this as being a secondary concern, after the catering bottleneck.
>>
>> So, what can we handle? Given what we know, I would be comfortable
>> recommending that we keep our registrations going until 250. This would
>> mean that from right now, we would be able to take 78 additional
>> registrations, beyond what we've already set aside, before cutting off. I
>> would love to see us welcoming as many people as we can handle.
>>
>> Thoughts? Are there other constraints we should consider?
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>>
> --
>
> Alex Leith
> 0419 189 050
>
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