[Inpycon] PyCon India post mortem.

[Dhananjay Nene]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Navin Kabra <navin at smriti.com> wrote:
> I generally agree with what Dhananjay has said.
>
> I'd like to add a few more points, and respond to a couple of Dhananjay's
> points:
>
> 1. We should try to get the media sponsorships in place around the time the
> CFP goes out. Basically, I don't think we needed the media sponsorships to
> get more people attending the conference - we had enough registrations even
> before the ads went out. What would help is if "CFP" ads go out in LFY and
> DevIQ - we'll hopefully get many more, and even better quality submissions
> for talks.
>
> 2. Any feedback on the length of the talks? Many talks ended a little early
> and we had to fill in with lightening talks, and in some cases, it was just
> free time. Did that work well, or would people have liked a more packed
> schedule? Have you heard any feedback? My personal opinion is that the 1
> hour slots were fine. The best talks did need 1 hour, and in fact had to be
> cut-off in the end. The option of having lightening talks was also useful.
> And in general, having breaks during the conference is not a bad thing.
>
> 3. Regarding fees: While I generally agree that fees should be higher, I
> think I would like to see a significant chunk of the non-student tickets
> going at around the Rs. 1000 mark. It can increase to Rs 1500 or Rs. 2000,
> for the last 2 or 3 weeks.
>
> 4. Capacity planning: While it would be good to be able to do capacity
> planning, and guarantee seats to people who "book" slots in advance, I think
> that would be just too much work and a headache.

My point is that sometimes the number of people in a single room
substantially exceeds what is safe. Thus I do believe we need to find
a way to contain the attendance within a single room to reasonable
limits - whether through pre-booking or closing the doors. In general
actually, the limit of safe count is usually the number of seats
(since the fire exits etc. have been designed based on number of seats
and the regulatory and contemporary design parameters at the point in
time the building was designed).