[Conferences-discuss] How much work?

Aahz Maruch aahz@rahul.net
Thu, 14 Feb 2002 15:51:36 -0800 (PST)


Paul F. Dubois wrote:
> 
> Those of you who have never taken part in running a conference have
> absolutely no idea how much is involved. Even the "small" conference at
> LLNL was a significant amount of work for us. (By the way, the DOE now
> has new restrictions on us running conferences and I doubt that we could
> do it again.) Those advocating "amateur" conferences need to be
> realistic about what happens when 300 people show up. Emergency
> messages, lunch, coffee, ...; as Guido said, you can't just all go over
> to Starbucks.

>From my POV, that is both untrue and unfair, on two counts:

* Some people have had the opportunity to observe how much work is
involved in running a conference, even if they haven't actually "taken
part".

* Your statement implies a much higher lower bound to the necessary work
than I believe to be accurate, based on my own experience in running a
small convention.  One can get away with fairly little work, as long as
one scales and sets expectations accordingly.

One lesson that I've learned from doing it myself and from watching
other people: get a facility, and things will happen.  Period.  The
facility is the *only* thing that matters to ensure that a small
conference will happen.
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