Hi
There has been some discussion and complaints about the constraints of
the prospective DebConf 13 venue "Le Camp" in Vaumarcus. With this mail
I'd like to summarize the different topics raised and to give an
overview of the things that have to be taken into account from my point
of view. I initially intended to show this text to others from the local
team before sending it to have a more complete overview, but as the
meeting is soon, I did not do that. So this is solely my personal view.
** Goals for tonight's meeting **
Define realistic criteria for a DebConf venue in Switzerland:
- What is the minimal amount of people we have to be able to accomodate
in close proximity to the venue (walking distance)?
- How many of those should be sponsored?
- How much sponsorship money can we realistically expect?
- How far away from the closest airport should the venue be at the
maximum (hours of travel, changes of train, bus)?
- What do we have to achieve in negotation with Le Camp to have DC
there?
I would really like to keep the discussion focused on these points. And
to be as open as possible to all options. It does not help if something
is an upfront "no-go".
** Issues and Complaints **
(1) The venue only has 325 beds. Several people fear that this might not
be enough. Actual data of arrived people in penta shows that the
only DebConf with over 325 people present on the same day was DC 7
in Edinburgh. DC 11 just scratched the limit of Le Camp [1].
(2) Alternative accomodation for people to arrange their own
accomodation is too far away. Realistically you need a car to get
there.
(3) The venue was advertized as "camping will be allowed" and now it
sounds like camping won't be possible. You are telling lies. It's
true that the local team thought that camping will be possible in
some form. We are still negotiating about this with Le Camp, but
currently it seems that individual tents won't be possible on their
site.
** Facts about Le Camp **
- 325 beds
- Alternativ accomodation "nearby":
http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/AlternativeAccomodation
- Camping on the site may not be possible, but still unknown if we
can find a lawn in walking distance for camping.
- They can probably cook for more than 325 people and the main
auditorium has more than 325 places. Enough rooms for hacklabs and
smaller talk rooms.
- No contract signed yet, but negotations ongoing. They want us to sign a
contract in the next months.
** Restrictions **
While we all would like to accomodate everyone interested in coming to
DebConf there are several related issues we have to keep in mind when
deciding about the venue and the number of attendees.
(1) Money: The initial calculations were done with an average of 200
participants over the whole conference. This lead to a rough budget
of 150k to 200k $. While this always seemd very high it did not
sound impossible. Increasing the number of participants also means
increasing the money needed unless we expect a much higher
percentage of participants that pay for their costs. At least from
my point of view everything that is based on a budget of more than
200k $ paid by sponsors is simply unrealistic. 150k $ seems a
realistic goal.
(2) Suitability of the venue: We did quite some evaluation of different
possible venues. The only way a DebConf in a city seemd possible was
with "bunker" (Zivilschutanlage) style accomodation [2]. The local
team's opinion on this is that we would rather not organize DebConf
in Switzerland than with this style of accomodation. So unless
someone is able to find some cheap accomodation, a DebConf in a city
won't be possible.
There were 2 other holiday camp style centers similar to "Le Camp"
under discussion, but they are bot less central in Switzerland, not
significantly cheaper and had other drawbacks [3]. But they both provide
more beds than "Le Camp". We could investigate these in more details
once again. Also they are both in the German speaking part of
Switzerland while more than half of the local team is mainly French
speaking. This does not exclude these locations but may make
communication more difficult.
To summarize: They raw quantity of beds is not the only thing that
counts.
(3) While I don't like turning interested people down I also think
DebConf can not grow indefinitely. I belive that the spirit of
DebConf will suffer if it gets a lot larger than 300 people. Things
will get more anonymous and we will have to enforce stricter rules
and policies. It will get even harder to accomodate everyones
personal wishes.
** Open Questions **
(1) We don't know yet how many participants we'll reall get. Maybe the
whole discussion is just moot because not more than 325 people want
to stay at Le Camp.
(2) At least for Bosnia there was quite a big difference beween people
who reconfirmed and those that actually attended the conference
according to penta. We have to find a procedure to make these two
numbers match better if space is limited (by money or by actual
beds). An alternative would be to overbook and to hope that our
estimates are correct. But that seems very dangerous.
Gaudenz
[1] See
http://rkd.zgib.net/http/debconf/dc11/only-arrived/food-by-date.txt,
look at "Statistics for all people" and add the 46 "NotWithUs" (ie. not
eating DC food). The max is 315. Detailed day to day statistics are not
available for Edinburgh.
[2] example picture, they all look similar:
http://www.rettung.bs.ch/anlagenvermeitung.jpg
[3] Melchtal and Fiesch: The manager of Fiesch was not willing to
even discuss anything more than 1 year in advance and Melchtal is quite
remote and does not look nearly as nice as "Le Camp". Also in both
locations we don't know if there is a big enough room to serve as a main
auditorium. In Melchtal there are probably as few alternative hotels
around as in Vaumarcus, in Fiesch there are some hotels as this is a
quite touristic region.
Fiesch: http://www.sport-ferienresort.ch/
Melchtal: http://www.sportcamp.ch/de/index.php
--
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett ~
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