Nick:
Please find attached a report on a site visit for PyCon done recenty. I've
updated the wiki page, but thought you might want to see the level of detail.
Some of the hotel stuff may be unnecessary - we are working on getting you
hotel information right now.
regards
Steve
PyCon Site Visits
- Report on Montreal Site Visit follows
City - The city is amazing! There are endless things to do and great food to
try. The venue page will be swamped with information. Most of the hotels we
looked at have underground tunnels connecting them to the convention center so
if we get bad weather, most people do not have to go out into it if they do not
want to. There are many areas with plenty of food options in walking distance
from the convention center.
The Convention Center - This is a huge Convention Center. We are spread out
between a few floors, but I think we can make it work because the structure of
the building is straight forward unlike the Santa Clara Convention Center. We
have to be very careful to make signage and maps clear. Below is the break down:
On the 2nd Level we have the Exhibit Hall space. It is very large. It was
intended for our lunches, butonsite I switched (signed addendum for it) what we
reserved for the expo hall to the large space on the 2nd level. I think it
would be wise to put registration outside of this area. We also decided on
having the buffet lunch in the same area as the exhibits. The space that used
to be the expo hall on the 4th floor will now be a break out room for our
conference sessions.
On the 4th Level we have the green room. On the 5th Level we have the tutorial
rooms and the sprint rooms. We also have breakouts on this level along with the
plenary. On the 7th Level we have two breakouts.
The Hotels- These hotels are all within walking distance. I walked to every
single one of them. Additionally, there are under ground tunnels that will take
you from the hotels to the Convention Center and vice versa. All of the hotels
below are Free Internet for all of our attendees.
-Hyatt Regency [169$ CDN] - The farthest away. It is a nice hotel just like the
one in Santa Clara. In my option, if they do not lower it to $149, we shouldn't
get any rooms there. Not worth the walking.
-Holiday Inn Select [163$ CDN] - The quality of the hotel is not worth the
nightly rate. Maybe if it was $90/ night then it would be considered.
-Le Dauphin - [158$ CDN] - This is perfect for our attendees. It is
contemporary, clean, close, and at a good rate. I want to take all of their
rooms. Unfortunately, they only have about 100 of them.
-InterContinental [179$ CDN] - Across the street from the CC. This property is
a 4 diamond property. They are willing to work out an early bird price for us
that is 179$ CDN ($176 USD) up to 60 days prior and then 199$ CDN after that
(with a two year contract). There is going to be a one night guarantee charged
and that is also the penalty for the cancellations. Beautiful property though
and great food. Corporate attendees will love it. I think getting this place to
169$ CDN would be a great deal. I am working on this.
-The Westin [243$ CDN] - Across the street from the CC. This is a nice
property. They may lower to $179. It is a nice property, but the
InterContinental is much fancier so I do not think they should be the same
price. I will see if I can lower it another $10/night.
-Le Place D'Armes [196$ CDN] - Great place, but working to get a lower price. A
few rooms at this hotel would be nice, but not huge block. (they do not have
many to offer anyways)
-The Delta [149$ CDN] - This property used to be a Hyatt so it looks very
similar to what our attendees are familiar with. This property has good food.
It is $149 CDN per night and about a 5 minute walk to the Convention Center. I
definitely want to get a decent room block at this hotel. It's not super modern
like the Hyatt in Montreal, but it is A LOT cheaper and it is an average
property.
On Jul 18, 2012, at 5:27 AM, Nick Burch wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jul 2012, Bernd Fondermann wrote:
Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend. I've started at a new project this
week and this leads to collisions now I wasn't expecting. I'm very sorry.
Keep up the good work, though.
That's a shame :/
Any chance you could have a think about the questions you would have asked,
and the photos you would have taken, then add them to the wiki[1]?
Nick
[1] http://wiki.apache.org/concom-planning/ACEU12SiteVisit
--
Steve Holden st...@holdenweb.com, Holden Web, LLC http://holdenweb.com/
Python classes (and much more) through the web http://oreillyschool.com/
Conferences and technical event management at http://theopenbastion.com/
Next: DjangoCon US Sep 6-8, Washington DC http://djangocon.us/
