Folks,
Daniel and I had a successful and fully worthwhile day in
Heidelberg. The main purpose of the day was for the venue guys to
discuss the details again so that they can be well prepared. But we
also used the time to advance some of the planning.
Here's an attempt to share with you the results of the day.
Registration, front desk
========================
Details shall be prepared for and discussed in the forthcoming
registration/front desk meeting.
We need to give them registration data ASAP. I've agreed to supply
a few records for a start so that they can test it. I propose to use
a few core orga records, i.e. of people we know will attend.
Deadline for DebCamp reservations (i.e. we need to free up the rooms
we don't want to pay for) is *at the end of this week*!
Deadline for the complete attendee list and meal statistics is at
the end of next week. I will supply them with a test set of 20
orga members this week so that they can play around.
Keys
====
The youth hostel will hand out keys after payment exactly according
to our room allocation list. Everyone will have to pay 10 € deposit.
Where this is a problem, we'll find individual solutions.
Badges
======
Badges should always be worn for security reasons, and also for food
logistics. See next.
Conference rooms
================
We need to produce plans for the furniture we need in each room,
ideally by the end of next week.
Water
=====
The youth hostel will install water filling stations and we'll
produce non-fancy PET bottles ("bike bottles") for our attendees to
stay hydrated. This seems like the most cost-effective method.
Coffee
======
There is a high-end coffee machine at the bistro (2.00–2.50 € for
a "speciality") and there are two medium-range coffee machines (not
instant coffee) close by the main talk rooms (1.50 € for
a "speciality").
If we also want to offer plain coffee ("drip coffee") as the default
hot drink, then we have two choices:
* Served, meaning attendees pay ca. 1.75 €/cup (0.28l)
* Self-served, meaning DebConf pays ca. 1.30 €/cup
Self-served has the advantage that we can completely control and
scale, e.g. offer 20l each day at 11 and 15l at 16 o'clock, or make
the amount dependent on the previous days. We don't incur much of
a risk, i.e. we only pay for what is actually drunk up to the amount
we cleared.
If we have the money, I would tend for the second option
(self-served, free for attendees, limited amount each day though).
Food logistics — meal tickets
=============================
We tried hard to find a solution to avoid meal tickets. The final
deal is as follows:
Attendees staying at the hostel have food included and will get
a mark printed onto their badge ("✓"). Such a badge permits you to
eat while you're there.
Attendees not staying at the hostel will get their badges marked "×"
in the same place. Those people will need to purchase meal tickets
(at the hostel) and be expected to toss them into a bucket when
fetching food.
See
https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf15/Germany/BadgeData#Logistics
The youth hostel will take the numbers we provide and invoice/refund
without exact headcounts. They do reserve the right to check though,
and they want to know our assumptions for plausibility, e.g. why we
assume that 20% might not show up for dinner on the last day, etc..
Food logistics — queues
=======================
The youth hostel is confident that they can serve 150–175 people at
once. Given that we'll approach twice that, it was highly
recommended to us to partition the attendees and _suggest_ to them
to fetch food during certain times. This won't be a hard rule and
fluctuations are expected, but we should suggest it *in their own
interest*.
https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf15/Germany/BadgeData#Logistics
already considers this.
Bistro
======
The selection at the bistro will now feature the following drinks
- Sparkling water
- Fritz Cola
- Club Mate
- Apple juice
- Some sort of lemon soda
- Alcohol-free beer
- A local beer (a mild Pilsner)
- A Munich Weißbier (Paulaner)
- Shanty (Radler)
- Two local white wines
- One local red wine
- One local, semi-sweet desert wine
Coca Cola products may (unfortunately) still be bought from the
vending machines.
In terms of food, there'll be a variety of packaged snacks (larger
bags, not those tiny airplane sized ones), fruits (needs checking)
and a selection of fresh sandwiches and wraps.
We'll be able to adjust supply as per demand within 2 days or so.
Insurances
==========
We are going to exempt the hostel from liability on all packages
they receive for us as it would just be too expensive and
complicated for us.
We need to decide for ourselves whether to purchase event organiser
liability and possibly protection against legal liability.
Entertainment
=============
The bistro will be open every day from 10:00 until 02:00, except if
demand dwindles, then they reserve the right to close earlier.
We'll have a beergarden outside with a separate bar every day
(except conf dinner) from 16:00 to 00:00.
The birthday party has been cleared. We have a contact for a cake.
Using their facilities or cooling space is not possible.
We'll arrange the big plenary room for the party, so cake will be
served there, and we'll have the possibility to use the microphone
for games and whatever else we want. I hope this can be done in
a way not to disturb video setup.
The band will be playing in the basement, in shifts with whoever
wants to play some tunes.
We've also asked them to open the disco for us on Wednesday and
Friday nights.
We're in talks with the folks running the sports field to be able to
use it after the day trip and possibly on another day or two.
Banners, flipcharts, furniture
==============================
Daniel checked out spaces for banners and is ready to go.
We found enough furniture on site to avoid having to rent anything.
Pinboards for the job wall and also means to visually fence off the
job fair a bit are on site.
Video, audio
============
Daniel surveyed the remaining items and will inform the video team.
Power, network
==============
All under control. We're likely to get help from the local
electrician, and network just needs us to set up stuff now.
Conference dinner
=================
We went to Waldschenke for lunch and met the owner. The food's okay
and the site very nice. There is a sightseeing monument nearby for
those arriving early or wanting to walk a little.
The planned transport with busses might not work due to traffic. We
might need to renegotiate this a little, or walk to another location
first to avoid a bottleneck around the venue that could cost each
bus 20–40 minutes delay.
The band (another one) will be playing at the restaurant when people
arrive (18:00), pause for dinner (19:00–20:30) and then start again
for some dancing, until the busses start leaving again from 21:30
until 23:00.
I think that's it for now and I hope I didn't forget anything.
Daniel?
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> @martinkrafft
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany: http://debconf15.debconf.org
DebConf16: Cape Town: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf16
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