Hi All
The discussions until now have been spread over a number of different
lists, so I'll try to do a summary to help everyone understand what's
sorted so far, and some idea of what we've still to go!
On the ApacheCon Europe side, the idea for this has taken a year in the
making. At the last retreat in Ireland, the idea of a return of ApacheCon
Europe hosted at SAP was suggested. Paul Goetz, an Apache Committer who
works for SAP, volunteered to investigate if this might be possible, most
likely without realising quite how much work it would entail... It has all
paid off though, thanks Paul!
SAP have kindly agreed to sponsor our use of the Rhein-Neckar-Arena[1] in
Sinsheim. They're covering the venue, the tech stuff (internet, projects,
sound etc), venue staff, and have also agreed to sponsor a bit extra, to
be put towards catering and staffing of evening events. We've the space
for about 500 people, over three levels. One level can hold either 300 in
one track, or 3*100 tracks, the other either 200 or 2*100. We can project
from one floor to the other, for things like keynotes, and we've another
floor for registration / breakout etc. Paul can hopefully answer more
questions, and he may even have some pictures to share.
We need to decide exactly what kind of conference we want to fill this
lovely space with. Do we want big tracks (200/300 people), or small ones
(5*100), or some days with one setup and some days others? What sort of
tracks do we want to put on? Do we want to do a day or two for certain
popular project areas, or do we want to do one track for the whole time
for a popular area, with smaller ones around it? What things (if any) do
we want to put on in the evening?
For ApacheCon North America, there were lots of discussions in Vancouver
about the future of ApacheCon, and out of this came the RFP[2]. Following
the RFP process, the bid from Open Bastion was accepted. They had
originally proposed a November date, but for a few reasons (not only ACEU)
we have all decided to go for early 2013. The Open Bastion team are
putting together a final list of dates and venues, which they'll bring
here for feedback hopefully next week. (Those of you who are members can
look at the apachecon-rfp list archive for the initial proposal, but note
that a few things have changed following discussions and feedback with the
team. Oh, and please don't share the proposal, it's not public)
ACNA will be held in a conference hotel, much as with past conferences,
whereas ACEU is at a stand-alone conference venue. The Open Bastion team
have some great ideas for rejuvinating the conference, much of which needs
volunteers. I'll let them share some of those, and how they'll be helping
to support the volunteering. The idea isn't to use the volunteers as
unpaid organisers (the producer is doing most of the hard work), but
instead to harness the ideas and energy of volunteers to build a great
conference!
With ApacheCon Europe, we have a chance to try out a different model, and
experiment with different things! (Not all of which may work, but we've
got to try things to find what works best). ApacheCon North America comes
later, so can hopefully learn from Europe, and can also innovate in
different ways through it's different venue and structure. Exciting times!
Nick
[1] http://www.achtzehn99.de/wirsol-rhein-neckar-arena/
[2] http://www.apache.org/foundation/apachecon-rfp.html
- Progress so far Nick Burch
-
