[Conferences-discuss] Update: YAPyC 2003 (Washington, DC)

[Paul Everitt]

On Tuesday, July 16, 2002, at 11:10 PM, Adam Turoff wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 08:06:19PM -0400, Greg Ward wrote:
>> On 16 July 2002, Adam Turoff said:
>>> It's a little difficult to solve a multivariate equation when there 
>>> all
>>> the variables are unknowns.  :-)
>>
>> But it looks like you've done a great job so far -- thank you!

I agree, I think you have the right spirit of things for what people are 
looking for.

> I want to emphasize that I punted on some important issues, and
> want to higlight them again:
> 	- 3-day event
> 	- 3-4 concurrent tracks
> 	- 300 people
> 	- $100/person budget [ballpark]

That's correct as well.  I'll try to give some feedback based on helping 
organize EuroPython 2002 in Belgium a few weeks ago...

1) $100 is certainly generous.  EP 2002 was more than that.

2) They hauled in 255 people total, where roughly 75 didn't pay 
(organizers, speakers, press).

3) The role of lightning talks and BoFs was a challenge.  Do you have a 
single lightning talk track, or do you work it into the separate 
tracks?  Should BoFs be after hours, or should time be reserved?  (In my 
opinion, have a single lightning talk track and don't try to carve out 
space for BoFs).

4) The tutorials took up the morning of the first day, were separately 
priced, and were considered relatively successful (I think).

> I'm guessing that this would work for a Python conference.  I've
> never been to the Foretec events, and I don't know what the expectations
> would be for a community run Python conference.

The expectation is to do something different than previous 
conferences. :^)

> I'm also ignoring some of the more substantive issues: conference
> theme, target audience, target tracks, general scheduling (mid-winter
> seems OK so far), and overall expectations for this event.  I really
> don't have a voice for any of these issues, and the best I can do here
> is describe what's been done at four North American YAPC events to date.

I don't know if you're opening up the floor to more ideas, but...we'd 
probably want to have a Zope "sprint" in the 3 days before the 
conference.  A sprint is an intensive XP-style coding event for 8-16 
people.  This isn't a part of the conference proper, but can have the 
side effect of making it feel more like an official, annointed event.

Guido hinted in his EP 2002 talk that he might want to have some kind of 
sprint-like stuff for Python futures.  Guido, interested in making this 
part of YAPyC 2003?

>> It shouldn't need saying, but I am totally opposed to expensive,
>> unnecessary, and wasteful swag: I have enough tote bags already.  I
>> assume that kind of junk as not part of YAP(y)C conferences?
>
> Tote bags do tend to be useful (especially if there's a conference
> schedule, maps, and mass of other printed materials for each
> attendee).  This has been a non-issue, because O'Reilly has donated
> totebags before out of their leftover stock.

I understand the reasoning.  Personally, though, I'm with Greg on this 
one.  I actively hate them.  :^)

--Paul