I emailed the contact person for setting up a splinter meeting. It sounds like this is an avenue open to us, and has some potential benefits. I kind of like the walk-in demo space idea, but that's probably outside of the scope we were looking for right now. They charge a a few hundred for the room, but that's likely going to be the same if we rent a conference room at a hotel. I'm definitely not married to the idea, so if y'all would rather do somewhere or somewhen else that's also grand. d. David, It sounds like a splinter meeting is exactly what you would need. Splinter meetings can be private (invitation only), or public, and public splinter meetings will be listed in the online meeting materials as well as in the printed meeting program. Anyone that is registered for the meeting may attend your splinter meeting. There is no set format for splinter meetings, it is kind of a "catch all" term we use for anything that is not specifically science session related. We can schedule invitation-only splinter meetings in any time slot you would like, but we try not to schedule public splinter meetings against our Plenary Invited talks (8:30am, 11:40am, 3:40pm, and 4:30pm each day). An exception to this would be if you wanted to have a "open-house" kind of set up all day, where people could come in and out at their leisure to test your software--we could schedule that for a long block of hours with no problem. It also sounds like you might need more than one format--maybe a walk-in space for demos, and a smaller meeting space for developers and private meetings. Either way, we can accommodate you. You can fill out the form available at http://aas.org/meetings/splinter_proposal_form.php, or you can send the details to me and we can figure out what will work best. The splinter form also has most of our AV pricing, for reference. I can take AV orders and catering orders (if applicable) as well. Thanks, Lisa Idem Meetings Manager American Astronomical Society 202-328-2010 ext. 126 On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:50 PM, David C. Collins <dccollins@lanl.gov> wrote: Hi there-- I have a question about Splinter Meetings, specifically for the January 2011 meeting in Austin. I'm trying to organize a meeting for a software package yt, which designed to analyze and visualize astrophysical simulation data. The meeting we're planning is a combination of new user instruction and developer meeting to discuss recent work that's been done from our various contributors, as well as future development ideas (with the goal of blurring the line between new users and developers). The AAS meeting is an ideal venue, as so many of us will be going already, and it's a good way to attract new users. The workshop application deadline has passed, but I was wondering if a splinter meeting might be an appropriate session type for us. What is the general setup for this kind of session, and do you think it would be adaptable for our needs? Thanks! David Collins. -- Sent from my computer.