[Conferences-discuss] Crackle, crackle, "hello"...

[Adam Turoff]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 08:28:10AM -0500, Steve Holden wrote:
> I have some (old) experience running conferences in the UK for
> organizations like DECUS and the Sun UK User Group. Usually the smaller
> conferences can be adequately housed in low-cost facilities such as
> acedemia can provide, but as numbers rise one is forced to consider
> fewer and fewer such venues due to the larger facilities requirements.
> This being the USA, I would expect the break point to be somewhat higher
> than the 400 or so we could adequately manage in UK academic venues back
> in the 1980s -- say 500 to 750?

Not really.  YAS has organized 3 small grass-roots conferences in North
America thus far (the fourth is coming up in St. Louis this June).  
There have been other small Perl conferences in Europe that have been
under 300 people (2 YAPCs and I believe 3 German Perl Workshops).

The first YAPC lost about $2,000, mostly because the admission fees
were underestimated slightly ($65pp, 285 attendees, 2 day event).
That money was more than made up as a tote bag was secretly passed
around before the organizer had time to finish his closing remarks.
The subsequent two YAPCs have covered costs and are now attracting
upwards of 350 people (perhaps more if last year's event had been
held in the US instead of Montreal).  The limiting factor now is
the size of the venue; I don't see 200 people/3 days as a money-losing
lower bound in an academic setting.

> We found that offereing bused hotel accommodation to the commercial
> types minimzed complaints about the primitive nature of the university
> halls of residence, and that expense-account holders woud cheerfully pay
> for such accommodation.

YAPCs have been intentionally planned to be near both (reasonable
but low cost) hotels and dorms to accomodate both types of audiences.
Twice there was a courtesy van for those who didn't want to make
the 15 minute trek to the venue.  Once the hotels were about a
10-15 minute walk away.

The biggest issue and blessing with YAPCs have been that the cost is
kept intentionally low, so that even those without expense accounts
can pay for it out of pocket (especially including students).


There has been a palpable sense of "we're here for ourselves" at any
YAPC.  The volunteer spirit has been quite pronounced in the past and
will likely continue.  It also helps that the Perl community has a 
big ticket event in California every year for those who do not like
the low cost roll-up-your-sleeves-and-lets-get-to-work atmosphere.

I'm convinced that the PSF or some other community organization
could organize Python 11.  I'm told that it's not a lot of work to
organize these types of events, but it's also more than you expect
going in.  The only questions I have relate to the respective
differences between Perlfolk and Pythonistas.  For example, what
are the differences in expectations if Python 11 were both a grass
roots event and the primary event on the Python calendar?  Is it
significant that O'Reilly's OSCON is the major gathering of the Perl
faithful, setting up YAPCs as "alternative" conferences?

Z.