Hello,
2009/3/16 Zeth <[email protected]>:
Hello everyone,
I have been touring around Europe with my work, so I am just now
catching up with the discussions. So below are some scattered thoughts
from me on what I have read thus far.
2009/3/15 Jacob Hallén <[email protected]>:
- How many people can we have before we run into the limits of the facilities?
I think this would be a nice problem to have. Like John, I don't think
we will. However, if we get a lot more than we expect then at some
point we just declare it closed. Declaring the conference full is not
a bad thing, those that do not get in this year will be chomping at
the bit to get in next year.
However, there is always a certain amount of cancellations, so anyone
who could not get a ticket can be put on a waiting list to be
reassigned a ticket when one becomes available.
Due to some costs being variable, others being fixed, and yet others
being semi-fixed until a certain step point; there are a few "sweet
spots" where we might want to close booking. Adding a thousand in
costs to allow one more delegate would not be sensible. Adding it to
allow 50 delegates might make sense.
The venue itself would handle a large number. Our experience is that
at any point, a significant amount of people will be at no talk at
all, they will be programming in the foyer and bar areas, in the
toilet or out shopping. If one talk is full, then nevermind, people
can go to other talks and get the talk next year, or listen to the
audio later.
The things that become more difficult as numbers increase are food,
social events, general crowd control and dealing with people's random
problems, more people means more random one of things. Being prepared
on the small things helps with that. At the last PyConUK we had a
secure staff room, having a place to print things and talk privately
this made organisation far easier.
The tutorial days were also a huge help, as a subsection of the crowd
know what to do by the time the rest of the hordes arrive. The people
who have come to the venue before (presumably those who booked at the
extra early-bird rate) will also have a calming effect as they know
the drill already.
söndagen den 15 mars 2009 skrev John Pinner:
I closed Extra Early Bird this morning, at this point we had 142
delegates registered.
It is clear that several of the UK people knew this was coming, they
were expecting it because the two PyConUK events had the same system
of firm deadlines, we have credibility with them.
Hopefully by the second year here, the other Europeans will be in the
same rhythm. I have some thoughts on what we could do now since I do
not think we get enough delegates by doing nothing. Expecting the same
publicity to hit everyone in Europe in the same way is not realistic,
we need to divide and conquer, focus on some of the things which would
bring us the most delegates:
* There is no Republic of Ireland in the list yet. We need to contact
Python Ireland, they have good mailing lists and getting from the
Republic of Ireland to Birmingham is very cheap, so we should be able
to get several Irish delegates. PyConUK had several, Europython should
have even more.
The Irish started registering today, after Extra Early Bird.
* Likewise we need to find out what lists exist for the Netherlands.
It is very near and we should particularly focus on them.
* From Germany we have had 20 delegates, but I think we should do
more. A prepared German email should be written. We can then
distributed that email to all those Germans who have currently booked,
and ask them nicely to send it around their friends and colleagues.
There are direct and short flights from various German cities to
Birmingham International. There are many German Python Programmers and
Germany does not have its own conference yet.
I think there is, remember Schoene Gruesse an die Deutsche User Gruppe!
http://www.pyconuk.org/video/dug_greeting.m4v
* Python Italy have a list of everyone who has gone to their
conference, this is gold dust, as these people have already been
willing to go to a Python conference. We should ask for the list, or
for them to send something to it. I would even consider a (small)
special offer for those who have been to PyCon Italy before, anything
which gets us noticed on the PyCon Italy list.
I think Jacob and Laura are going to PyCon IT, maybe they can get some
interest, we did send vouchers as a prize last year, but I don't think
they were used.
* PyCon France is 30-31 May, which kind of steals our thunder a little
there, it will be difficult to get mindshare with another conference
first. So to make up for it, ideally we would have someone there in
PyCon France at a stall with a laptop to guide people to make bookings
on the spot, perhaps with a special show offer (e.g. £10 off the
standard rate).
Nicolas?
Unfortunately, people like me in the UK are the least well placed to
do much of this. But we should try to contact people to help us in
these specific ways.
I'd hoped to go to PyCon IT but it's in the middle of payroll yearend
chaos, so I doubt that I will.
John
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