The microblog app that forwarded the post to the list didn't append the author name ( me ). Sorry.
Fabio Pliger 2012/1/11 <i...@pycon.it> > Europython has become a primary python community event thus some > considerations and decisions should be made. We'd like to share our > thoughts openly and receive your feedback. > PREAMBLE > > In the last 3 years Europython has had a considerable positive trend both > by attendees number and public interest. It has grown so much that it's > quite hard to organize that kind of event keeping the same service quality > and capacity cap that we've all enjoyed recently. > > *It's not a job for unexpert teams* dealing with their first conference > organization experience. Even teams with experience organizing small sized > could potentially face many troubles organizing a conference the size of > Europython. On the other hand it brings so much positive value that > probably nobody inside the Python community would like to loose what > Europython has become due to a single year failure or a simple wrong > estimate of the event complexity. > > Europython is *a community conference organized and runned by volunteers*that > work on it without any payback during their free time (that they could > be spending with their families and friends). As a matter of fact it's not > all: *they assume big responsabilities* and are fully responsible for the > financial scenario of the conference organization as well. > > This translates to one simple statement: if things go wrong and there are > economic losses they will be responsible for this. This have happened to us > (*Python Italia Association*) some years ago during our local Pycon > organization <http://www.pycon.it/>. We did pay and we did learn from our > mistakes. Fortunately the numbers were rather different from a conference > like Europython and we are still here, organizing conferences and doing a > good (at least I hope) job organizing Europython. > > What I'm trying to highlight at this point is that *Europython is getting > big and can probably reach numbers very close to Pycon US* if we all want > but, unlike it, Europython is not organized and managed by the PSF ( wich > acts just as sponsor ). There's no big organization protecting your back in > case of financial losses. The organizers are completely and lonely exposed. > I'm not trying to say that Pycon US organizers have any advantages when > compared ( on contrary! they have a big responsability to handle and are > doing an outstanding job all from volunteers. Every single person within > the python community should thank and learn from ) but at least they are > not financialy exposed ( as far as i know ). > THE FUTURE > > The near future of Europython is quite well known and will take place in > July in Florence, once again. It's the second italian edition happenning in > Florence. But then what? *Who's willing to organize 2013/2014 editions?*Where > will it move to? > > At the time I'm not aware of any concrete and convincing hosting proposal. > To be honest I'm not aware of any proposal as well. As current organizers > we are somehow concerned about it. We should have some of the next > organizers helping us with the current edition organization, acquiring > information and experience for their own that will hopefully help them when > organizing 2013 and 2014 editions. > THE PRESENT > > With those premises we decided to take a public position towards the > future of the Conference. *We would like to publicaly expose our openness > to organize and run 2013/2014 edition*. At the moment I didn't hear about > any real and concrete proposal that is convincing enough about the fact > that we won't have any slowdown in our conference growth, credibility and > quality as well as not compromising the work that has been done by many > people over the past 10 years. > > In any case we'd like to send a strong message the community and to all > the bidders: we do care about it and we'd like to be completely sure that > we are passing the baton to a group of people that care and wish to do > great things. > The Biggest Python European Conference Ever > > 2011 edition was the biggest Python european conference ever with > something like 670 attendees. It could have been more but we decided to put > a limit on it. The reasons for that cap limit were mainly related to the > venue and lunches. The number of attendees is a topic by itself and should > be discussed openly within the community in order to understand if we want > to keep this number "managed" in the near future or want just to scale > (somehow like Pycon US). *We should be handling around 700 in 2012* and > are able to consider scaling a little bit more if needed in 2013/2014. > > Last year we have delivered a healthy conference. That's one the concepts > I'd like to stress the most and that I really care about. > > *First of all the budget* (yeah, though it's a community no-profit > conference ran by volunteers money is still a critical, if not the most, > part of whole system). Since the beggining we worked on a strategy to have > enough space to provide and scale extra services as we scale on sponsors. > > *Note:* I'm not including tickets revenue in this consideration as we > decided that we wanted a conference affordable to everybody keeping the > prices as low as we could. Thus tickets average revenue was almost 0. > > But when I talk about healthy environment I'm not talking only about the > budget: I mean the whole conference. I'm speaking about caring about social > events, delivering pleasant outdoor spaces for the attendees to socialize, > caring and promoting diversity topics, deploying handy services for foreign > attendees (such as pre-charged local > SIMs<http://ep2011.europython.eu/blog/2011/05/07/smartphone-dependent-buy-italian-sim>or > a rich partners > program<http://ep2011.europython.eu/blog/2011/04/15/ep2011-partner-program-released>to > enjoy such graceful city like Florence) and last but not least, managing > to end up with *a quite positive balance* that we can use to be improve > next year conference and reduce any risk. > > Another topic I'd like to talk about is *sponsors*. Sponsors are > essential for a conference that aims to have high quality standards. > Sponsors don't knock at your door offering you money just because Python is > cool and you are organizing a big european conference. Sponsors need to be > found, you need to "sell" your conference (aka your product), convince them > that they are not giving their money away to a bunch of people just having > fun. You need to convince them that they need it and they are investing > their money on an activity that potentialy has big benefits and their > investment will payback greatly. > > I like to think that we do not sell anything but just inform sponsors > about possibilities. *I really believe that Europython is a great > opportunity for many companies so far.* As I mentioned earlier we had > great feedback on our efforts to collect sponsors and work with them to > find out the best sponsorship cut for their needs. Almost all sponsors told > us that they were very satisfied about the conference and the service we > provided. Actualy, many asked us to keep them updated for the next year. I > may be biased and maybe wrong but I can't remember so many sponsor and > related activities during the last editions so far (and I've been attending > Europython for while). > The Best Python Conference Ever > > In 2012 we forecast that it'll be even bigger and we have worked on a > strategy to handle it fixing also the issues we had in 2011. > > One thing that we can garantee is that *we are willing to make Europython > 2012 the best Python conference ever!* > > See you in Florence. > > _______________________________________________ > Europython-improve mailing list > Europython-improve@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython-improve > > -- Fabio Pliger *linkedin* http://it.linkedin.com/in/fabiopliger *twitter* http://twitter.com/b_smoke
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