[Foss4g2009] Re: FOSS4G 2009 venue

[Dave Patton]

On 2008/08/30 4:14 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Denisa Adamova wrote:

>> There is only one date which has availability of 4 day venue hire
>> and it falls on Wednesday 21 October – Saturday 24 October 2008.
>> 
>> 1. What are your thoughts about this date?

As far as dates, keep in mind that if you use FOSS4G2007 as the model,
and don't count "Workshops day" and the Code Sprint, the conference
was 3 days (opening plenary Tuesday AM, closing plenary Thursday PM).
So, a 4-day window may be suitable.
As for those specific dates, the only thing that I wonder about is
'travel times'. Arrival shouldn't be an issue (travel can be done
during "workweek hours"), but will people be willing to give up
part/all of their weekend for conference attendance & travel?
Or, if the conference was Wednesday-Friday, with "Workshops day"
on Saturday, would that impact people's abilities/desire to attend
the workshops?

>> 2. Is there any chance that we could have all Workshops or the Code
>>  Sprint offsite at other venues?

Code Sprint should likely be planned to be "offsite" regardless
of the dates, based on the assumption that it is a 'standalone'
event that can function easily in venues that will presumably cost
less to hire than equivalent facilities at the convention center.

If Workshops are on a separate "workshops day", prior to the
body of the conference, as was done for FOSS4G2007, then they
could be "offsite", but I would look at that as a last resort,
as it raises lots of logistical issues.
First, everyone who attends a Workshop has to first go through
the registration process, so either the 'registration desk' used
for the conference has to be duplicated, or moved.
Secondly, for 2007, two of the classrooms used for Workshops were
then used on subsequent days for the Labs, so having Workshops
offsite would mean additional room setup, and possibly extra
costs for equipment(same applies if the workshops were held
after the conference).
Thirdly, for FOSS4G2007, with it's overall 4-day program, the
"workshops day" also included the OSGeo AGM, and was the setup
day for Exhibitors.

>> 3. What was the actual attendance at Workshops in 2007

That sort of information is in the FOSS4G2007 Final Report:
http://www.osgeo.org/sites/osgeo.org/files/webfiles/conference/archives/foss4g/2007/foss4g2007_Final_Report_public.pdf
If you total the attendance on page 25 in that PDF you get 547.
As people signed up for both a morning and afternoon workshop,
that actually represents 274 people.
Room capacities totaled to 318:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2007_VCC_Rooms#Workshops
and the workshops sold out before the conference, therefore
although some people who paid for workshops didn't attend
one or both of the workshops they paid for, the number to
use for comparison should probably be 318.

>> 4. What is the room requirement for Code Sprint for the last day?

http://www.foss4g2007.org/code_sprint/
And page 27 in the Final Report PDF.

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference:
Workshop Committee Chair
Conference Committee member
http://www.foss4g2007.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/